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SECOND ADVENTTSM, 



IN THE LIGHT OF 



JEWISH HISTORY. 



BY 

REV. T. M. HOPKINS, A.M. 



"Let him that readeth understand." — MARK xiiu 14. 



EDITED BY 



JAMES R. BOYD, D.D 




NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTH.OR'BY 

DODD & MEAD. 
1872. 



J>1tf? 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

T. M. HOPKINS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHING*!' 



NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 



The Author left, at the time of his decease, two 
works in manuscript, on the much agitated subject 
of Second Adventism, probably designing to pub- 
lish the smaller first (which is a sort of synopsis of 
the larger), as a means of determining whether it 
would be expedient to follow it with the larger. 
Both of these having been placed in the hands of 
the Editor for examination and revision, it has 
seemed best, on a careful comparison, to lay be- 
fore the public the following treatise, composed 
of the greater part of the larger work, and some 
portions of the smaller that served to render the 
former more complete. 

The subject is one confessedly of peculiar diffi- 
culty, upon which, therefore, a great diversity of 
opinion still exists ; and if, as the author supposed, 
he has constructed a line of argument that leads to 
a sound and satisfactory result, the reader will be 



4 NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 

amply compensated for the trouble of examination. 
The Treatise certainly throws much light on many 
portions of this important subject ; and it possesses 
great value besides, on account of the large quota- 
tions which it contains from a learned treatise of 
F. Muenter, late Bishop of Copenhagen, on the 
Jewish War under Trajan and Hadrian ; and also 
from a valuable exegesis (which it quotes) of Matt, 
xxiv. 29-31, by Prof. Edward Eobinson, D. D., to 
which that historical tract gives strong support. 

The argument which is drawn from the prophe- 
cy of Daniel and from the Apocalypse, introduces 
some points that will be read with interest, for 
their novelty at least, if not for their plausibility 
and accuracy as well. The interpretation given of 
the Apocalypse differs widely from the common 
one; but is not, for that reason, to be regarded as 
unworthy of consideration, and perhaps also of 
adoption. 

On these several accounts, the Editor takes 
great pleasure in commending the following work 
to a candid perusal, on the part of all who desire 
to know what the Scriptures really teach in re- 
spect tO THE COMING OF THE LOED. 

Geneva, K Y., 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



-*~ 



PAGl 

Introductory 7 

The Subject as announced by Jesus Christ. . . 10 



PART I. 

The First Catastrophe. — The Destruction of 

Jerusalem by Titus 12 

Literal Interpretation 17 

Figurative Interpretation 20 

The Time near at hand 22 

The Day of the Lord.— The Coming of the Lord. 27 



6 CONTENTS. 

PART II. 

PA8B 

The Second Catastrophe 41 

Munter's History • . 48 

Argument derived from the Jewish War under 

Trajan and Hadrian 52 



PART nx 

Recapitulation 117 

Exegesis op Matt. xxrv. 29-31 126 

Exegesis op Matt. xxiy. and xxv 163 

PART IV. 

Recapitulation op the Argument 171 

Argument from the Book op Daniel - 173 

Argument prom the Apocalypse 185 

Conclusion 194 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Again the world is summoned to look for the 
personal appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Again the human family is assured that the day of 
his advent is at hand; that not only the signs 
and tokens of his appearance are numerous, but 
that they are precisely those which Christ himself 
designated as the infallible precursors of his speedy 
appearing. The advocates of this position hold us 
responsible not only for a belief in the cardinal 
doctrines of the gospel, but also for a belief in the 
personal appearing and reign of Christ upon the 
earth, for a thousand years before the dawn of the 
millennial glory. It is not enough that we watch 
and wait and pray for the prevalence of his gospel 
and his universal reign on the earth, but we are told 
that we must believe in his personal presence and 
reign as introductory to the Millennium. Assuran- 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

ces are given us from the Old World and the New, 
that the day is at hand when " the Son of Man shall 
be seen coming in the clouds of heaven/ 5 with 
great pomp and glory, as introductory to the king- 
dom of heaven among men, and that he shall again 
dwell with men, as in the days of Herod the King, 
to instruct and train his people for the kingdom of 
heaven, and to bring his enemies to condign pun- 
ishment. 

The following Treatise takes the ground that 
the Second Advent or Coming of Christ is an 
event which transpired over 1700 years ago. How 
far the writer has succeeded in sustaining that 
position the reader can judge when he has duly 
considered the facts adduced in support of it. 

There is a kind of faith which differs so slight- 
ly from a blind credulity that it may properly be 
called by the same name, though it cannot be at- 
tacked successfully with the same weapons. It 
recognizes no conflicting facts or principles; ac- 
knowledges no argument which militates against 
it, as worthy of notice, but steadfastly endeavors 
to maintain its ground in defiance of all that has 
been said, however successfully, for its overthrow. 
Like the Jews who have so long been looking in 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

a wrong direction for the promised Messiah, the 
men who are daily expecting the literally personal 
coming of Christy are looking for an event which 
beyond all reasonable occasion for doubt, as we in- 
tend to show, has long since been numbered with 
things of the past. 



THE SUBJECT AS ANNOUNCED BY 
JESUS CHEIST. 

We shall endeavor to prove that Jesus Christ, 
in his instructions to his disciples concerning his 
coming, clearly assured them of three distinct car 
tastrqphes, two of which were to take place within 
a few years after his crucifixion and death, the 
other at the end of the world when he should per- 
sonally appear and literally, to raise the dead and 
judge the world. It w T ill be shown in respect to 
the two former events, that they were to be pre- 
ceded by many signs and wonders heralding their 
approach ; but that the latter shall be announced 
by " the Son of Man coming in his glory, and all 
his holy angels with him ; that he shall sit upon 
the throne of his glory, and that before him shall 
be gathered all nations," etc. His personal pres- 
ence is to be looked for in connection with this 
last event, and with this alone. 



THE SUBJECT AS ANNOUNCED BY CHRIST. 11 

That which we regard as the First Catastro- 
phe — and we believe it is so regarded by all — is 
the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, in the 
year of our Lord 70, or about forty years after the 
conversation held with his disciples respecting it 
upon the Mount of Olives. The Second Catas- 
trophe is that for which the advocates of a premil- 
lennial and personal advent of Christ are now wait- 
ing ; but which, as we are able to show, took place 
about seventy years after the first, in the nearly 
total destruction of the Jewish Nation, the wreck 
of their civil and ecclesiastical polity, and the dis- 
persion of the fragments of that unhappy people 
among the nations of the earth. The Third Co- 
tastrophe is the General Judgment at the end of 
the world. 



PART I. 

THE FIEST CATASTROPHE. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS. A. D. 70. 

This was indisputably the subject of discourse 
between the Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples on 
the Mount of Olives. He had just taken his final 
leave of the Temple and its Courts, and in quit- 
ting them had given utterance to the memorable 
prediction : " Yerily I say unto you, there shall 
not be left one stone upon another that shall not 
be thrown down,"— Matt. 24 : 2 ; Mark 13 : 2 ; 
Luke 21 : 6. Seated with his disciples upon the 
mountain side over against the Temple, where its 
courts and its edifices, as well as the City itself, were 
spread out before him, Peter, James, John and An- 
drew proposed to him privately the following ques- 
tions : " Tell us when shall these things be, and what 
shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of 



THE FIRST CATASTROPHE. 13 

the world ? "—Matt. 24 : 3 ; Mark 13:4; Luke 21 : 
7. It will be shown hereafter that the last ques- 
tion related to the end of the age, or dispensation, 
the word in the original being a\uvoq > and not koohov. 
The disciples, in the questions proposed, un- 
doubtedly referred to the things about which the 
Saviour had just been speaking — the destruction 
of the Temple, the coming of the Lord Jesus, and 
the end of the age — not of the world (as in the 
authorized version), for that had not been made the 
subject of conversation. Not a word had been 
said, as far as appears from the record, on the sub- 
ject of his final coming. And as to the term 
"world" (alovog), there cannot be a single argument 
offered in support of the translation. New Testa- 
ment usage is clearly against it. Gal. 1 : 4 — " This 
present evil world" can mean only the men of 
the present age ; in every-day language, the age. 
n. Cor. 4 : 4 — " In whom the god of this world 
hath blinded," etc. (i. e. as is evident, the god of 
this age or generation.) But i. Cor. 10 : 11, would 
seem to settle its meaning effectually. The Apostle 
is speaking of examples under the O. T. dispensa- 
tion which were left for our " admonition, on whom 
the ends of the world are come," plainly the ends 



14 THE FIRST CATASTROPHE. 

of the Jewish world, or Dispensation. He speaks 
as though this were a familiar phrase. Why, then, 
after the instructions which Christ had given con- 
cerning his new Kingdom, his new Dispensation, 
may we not reasonably suppose that the disciples 
inquired of their Master concerning that dUn> which 
was about to end ? Plainly this would be alto- 
gether consonant with the drift of the preceding 
questions. Besides, there is nothing in the pre- 
ceding part of Matthew's Gospel which shows 
that Christ had said any thing to his disciples which 
could lead them to believe that the end of the 
world, as we use this phrase, would come just be- 
fore the commencement of his kingdom. He 
taught them, indeed, that there would be at some 
future time an end of the world, a general judg- 
ment ; but it was evidently not his object to de- 
clare the exact time of this event in any conver- 
sation which he held with his disciples. His lan- 
guage is — " When the Son of Man cometh," etc., 
then he would proceed to do so and so. 

A more important passage for determining the 
exact meaning of this word (alow) is Matt. 13 : 39. 
In the preceding verse the Saviour says — " The 
field (of your labors) is the world" the Kocjiog. In 



THE FIRST CATASTROPHE. 15 

the next verse he says, " the harvest is the end of 
the world" (aloyvog), i. e. age y dispensation. If he 
meant to convey the same meaning by each of 
these words, why does he employ both ? Besides, 
as if to fix the meaning of this latter term, he as- 
sures his disciples that there were some standing 
before him who should not taste of death till they 
had seen the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom. 
Now who can understand him as thereby affirm- 
ing that some of those persons should remain on 
the earth till the judgment ? Hence we infer that 
the disciples mast have inquired concerning the 
end of the age, or dispensation. In answer to 
that question, it was true that there were some stand- 
ing there who lived to see the end of that dispensa- 
tion, but not the end of the world — the scene of 
the Judgment. 

It should also be understood that the meaning 
given by our translators to aiw in the passage 
under consideration, was derived from the Rabbins. 
The Jewish Church was so sunk in superstition to- 
wards the close of its existence and the beginning 
of the gospel dispensation, as to regard Jerusalem, 
heaven; and the land of Palestine, the world. 
Outside of this territory there was nothing which 



16 THE FIKST CATASTROPHE. 

the Jew regarded as worthy of his notice. This 
sentiment or feeling crept into the minds of the 
Apostles so far as to influence their modes of ex- 
pression. Paul affirms that the Gospel had been 
preached "in all the earth " (Rom. 10 : 18), when, 
as is perfectly obvious, he meant only the tribes 
of Israel. His object seems to be to show that 
this event (the preaching of the gospel) which 
the Saviour declared must take place before his 
coming, had actually transpired. Christ had de- 
clared that his Gospel must first be preached " in 
all the world for a witness to all nations, and then 
the end should come." Paul affirmed that that 
had already been done. u Their words," meaning 
the words of the first preachers of Christianity, 
" went into all the earth, and unto the ends of the 
world." Rom. 10: 18. 

The word which our translators have here ren- 
dered " world " is not aluv, but olKov/xhy, meaning the 
habitable earth or world, especially Judea, or Pal- 
estine ; precisely the same which Matthew repre- 
sents our Saviour as using, when he declared that 
the Gospel of his Kingdom must first be preached 
in all the earth, and then the end should come. 
Now it would seem to be quite clear that if Paul's 



THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION. 17 

understanding of the words of Christ may be re- 
lied on, " the end " to which Christ referred was 
very near at the time the Apostle wrote ; and it 
evidently was near, for the first catastrophe, the des- 
truction of Jerusalem by Titus, was even at the 
door. 

In confirmation of the above interpretation, 
refer to Luke 2:1. The decree that Caesar Augus- 
tus sent forth was, that " all the world should be 
taxed." Was Caesar Augustus ruler of the whole 
world (as we understand the term), or does the 
sacred writer mean only the land of Palestine ? or 
perhaps of the Roman Empire ? The same writer 
(4 : 5) uses the term evidently with reference to the 
Eoman Empire. And what a relief to the plain 
English reader, could he read, as he evidently 
should — u Again the Devil taketh him up into an 
exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the 
region round about," i. e. all the Roman Empire 
that was included in Palestine, in a moment of 
time. 

THE MEANING OF THE EXPRESSION " THE COMING 
OF THE SON OF MAN." 

As used by our Lord, it seems to bear the same 
import as the expression " the coming of the Lord" 



18 THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION. 

in the O. T. scriptures. But the manner in which 
it is used, both in the Old and in the New Testa- 
ment, clearly shows that no one understood by it a 
personal appearance of the Son of Man. It al- 
ways seems to imply a series of events of a most 
solemn and important character, and those which 
should deeply affect the character and condition of 
the Jewish nation, as well as of other nations 
around. 

Much has been said, by those who have writ- 
ten on this subject, in favor of what they are 
pleased to call a literal interpretation of the Scrip- 
tures, in reference to the event now under consid- 
eration. Hard language has been used with res- 
pect to those who differ from them as to the prin- 
ciple of interpretation, and a class of feelings ex- 
cited that are any thing but friendly. But, cer- 
tainly, no sane man will attempt to maintain the 
literal accomplishment of many things which our 
Saviour said would attend his coming. " The sun 
shall be darkened and the moon turned to blood," 
cannot be understood or explained literally. The 
darkening of the sun thus explained would be 
simply an eclipse, which is an event that takes 
place very often, and causes, of course, no special 



THE LITERAL INTERPRETATION. 19 

alarm or interest. The other expression, " the 
turning of the moon into blood," must be under- 
stood as referring only to its appearance ; but this 
is true of that luminary so often that no one re- 
gards it as any mark of fearful import, or one that 
would indicate any extraordinary event as about 
to take place. But " the stars falling from heaven " 
is an expression that creates the greatest difficulty 
to the Literalist. That the millions of stars, each 
one being perhaps many times larger than this 
earth, should fall upon this earth, yea, even upon 
the land of Palestine, and find room to lie there, is 
a declaration which every intelligent man will be 
likely to inquire into before he will adopt a theory 
involving such an absurdity. 

" Yery true," replies the second adventist, " but 
the orientals would mean by such a declaration 
(' the stars,' etc.) only the falling of meteors, like 
those of Nov., 1832." Our reply to such a sugges- 
tion is, that the Bible says " stars," not meteors, nor 
fire-balls, nor anything else, but literally stars, and 
we are dealing with Literalists. If there is any 
departure whatever from the most rigid literal 
construction, it must inure to our side of the ar- 
gument. 



20 THE FIGURATIVE INTERPRETATION. 

It must consequently be admitted that all these 
signs and wonders, as they were designed to fore- 
token events on the earthy and not in heaven, are 
simply declarations of troublous times at hand for 
the nation about whom our Lord was speaking. 
The obscuring of the sun, inasmuch as the Jewish 
church was the light of the world, may mean the 
fearful darkness which enshrouded that moral lu- 
minary " before the coming of the great and ter- 
rible day of the Lord." The " turning of the moon 
into blood " may foreshadow the bloody wars in 
which the civil power of the same nation was soon 
to be involved. " Falling stars " would then be 
emblematic of the sad and melancholy defection 
of those who were men of commanding influence, 
whether in church or state ; as " earthquakes" in 
different places would bespeak terrible commotion 
among the common people. 

It serves to commend this view of the subject 
not a little, that such a state of things actually oc- 
curred, in every important particular, before the 
destruction of Jerusalem, and also prior to the 
Second Catastrophe, as will soon be shown. Jose- 
phus, whose history was written among the smol- 
dering ruins of that city, has exhausted the Greek 



21 

language in describing the horrors of its siege and 
capture. Other historians who have attempted to 
describe that terrible event have seemed to re- 
gard themselves as portraying evils which strictly 
accord with the declarations of Jesus Christ him- 
self when he describes the troubles that were to 
come upon that nation as not having been equalled, 
or at any rate not surpassed, in all the preceding ages 
of the world, and never to be surpassed in the future. 
The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, in predict- 
ing the evils which were coming upon the Jews, saw 
fit to make use of language which had been employ- 
ed by Isaiah and all the prophets ages before, has not 
been noticed with sufficient particularity, we think, 
by any who have written upon the subject. It 
would seem to prove that the prophets referred to 
the same events as our Lord, and that the latter 
would thus remind the Jews that " they were the 
Librarians," as was said by Dr. Chalmers — that 
they had themselves kept the books which an- 
nounced with sufficient plainness those terrible 
evils which were now at the door. And as to a 
literal fulfilment of any of those O. T. prophecies, 
no one will claim it ; the most earnest Literalist 
will not dare to maintain it. 



THE TIME NEAR AT HAND. 

Every reader of the New Testament has felt 
embarrassed in reading the repeated assurances that 
" the day of the Lord is at hand." " Behold," says 
Christ himself, " I come quickly ; " " The time is 
short," etc. How often did he admonish his dis- 
ciples to watch, lest they should be taken by sur- 
prise. " What I say unto you, I say unto all, 
watch? His advent was often compared by him- 
self to the coming of a thief, solely on the ground 
of its unexpectedness. Various representations, 
all implying suddenness, abruptness, and the like, 
were employed by the Saviour in reference to his 
coming, all pointing to an event near at hand, and 
" at the door." 

The destruction of Jerusalem must have been 
that event. No other can claim to have been in- 
tended. That which we regard as his second com- 
ing is somewhat further off (65 or 70 years), or 
about A. D. 135. But the consideration of this, 
and of the facts connected with it, will be attended 
to in due time. The third and last coming is that 
in which he will personally appear for the pur- 
pose of raising the dead and of judging the world 



"the COMING OF CHRIST." 23 

— an event which certainly has not yet taken place, 
and, from all we can now see, is not likely very 
soon to occur. 

The gospel is first to be preached among all 
nations ; the world to be evangelized ; a period of 
many thousand years may intervene before the 
" end of all things " shall take place. But of this, 
more hereafter. 

Bearing in mind then the constant endeavor of 
our Lord to represent his coming as near at hand, 
and the fact that the Apostles, when they speak of 
that event, regard it in the same light, it is folly to 
maintain that he and they spoke then of the Judg- 
ment. Equally vain is it to apply the language to 
any other event except that of the destruction of 
Jerusalem by Titus, and of the final catastrophe of 
the Jewish nation soon after. 

It seems important here to glance at the pecu- 
liar training and expectations of the Apostles. 
They, in common with the rest of their country- 
men, had long looked for the promised Messiah. 
Their expectation was founded upon the prophe- 
cies of the O. T. scriptures, where the coming of 
the Messiah and his triumphant reign are foretold 
in terms of great poetic fervor and sublimity. This 



24: THE TIME NEAR AT HAND. 

reign is described as a golden age, when the true 
religion, and with it the Jewish throne and theoc- 
racy, should be re-established in more than pristine 
splendor and purity, and where universal peace and 
happiness should prevail. "All this," says Dr. 
Edward Robinson, " was doubtless to be understood 
in a spiritual sense. It was the Redeemer's spiri- 
tual kingdom that was thus foreshadowed — that 
mystery of God which had been kept hid from 
ages, but was now to be revealed to the Saints of 
the Most High." 

The occasion of blindness to the Jewish peo- 
ple seems to be somewhat akin to that which has 
happened to the advocates of Second Adventism at 
the present time. The Jews insisted upon a lit- 
eral explanation of the prophecies respecting the 
Messiah and his kingdom ; consequently they 
looked only for a temporal Prince and Sovereign. 
They expected a Messiah who should literally 
" come in the clouds of heaven," and, as King of 
the Jewish nation, should restore the ancient reign 
and worship, reform the morals of the people, de- 
liver them from the yoke of foreign dominion, and 
exalt them to national preeminence, and at length 
reign over all the earth in peace and glory. Their 



"the COMING OF CHRIST." 25 

then present condition of humiliation and sorrow 
was to cease, and to be succeeded by an eleva- 
tion to power and glory which should never end. 
The world, so to speak, was to be turned upside 
down ; existing principalities and thrones were to be 
cast to the ground. The coming of the promised 
Messiah was to be the signal for those mightly rev- 
olutions, the antecedent of the downfall of the 
then present order of the world, and of the intro- 
duction of a new state of things. 

That even the Apostles were deeply imbued 
with these sentiments in respect to a temporal 
Prince and Saviour, at least so long as Jesus was 
with them, and for a time after his resurrection, 
is apparent from the sacred narrative. On this 
subject, notwithstanding all the instructions of their 
Lord, they were still groping in darkness. True, 
they received Jesus with sincere faith as the prom- 
ised Messiah ; but of the true character of himself 
and his kingdom they had only imperfect concep- 
tions. Not until after the institution of the Holy 
Supper did he speak plainly to them of his ap- 
proaching departure. Even then their dullness of 
apprehension was so great that our Lord pro- 
nounces them incapable of receiving the instruction 



26 ''THE COMING OF CHRIST." 

which he desired to communicate. " I have many 
things to say to yon, bnt ye cannot bear them now." 

Such then being the low state of knowledge 
and expectation in the minds of the Apostles at 
the time of our Lord's death, it is easy to see that 
the inquiry, made by them only a few days earlier, 
must be judged of and interpreted in accordance 
with such a state of mind and of feeling. They 
had looked for a literal temporal exaltation of their 
Master, and for a restitution of secular preemi- 
nence and glory to the Jewish people. The intro- 
duction of this new and coveted state of things 
would constitute his " coming." But with this 
they must now connect the overthrow of the Tem- 
ple and of the City, as he had just predicted. 

The questions which they proposed to the Sa- 
viour, respecting his " coming " and " the end of 
the world," must be interpreted in accordance 
with their circumstances. They inquired about 
his coming to bring to an end the then existing 
state of things in the Jewish nation. The subject 
of the Judgment does not seem to have been em- 
braced in their minds, and consequently they 
asked no question about it, and therefore, no an- 
swer was required to be given to such question. 



"THE DAT OF THE LORD." 

Old Testament usage is the basis of the ex- 
pressions used by our Lord. The prophecy of 
Isaiah contains many parent texts, some of which 
may have been intended to apply to the very sub- 
ject in hand. Chapters xiii. and xiv. confessedly 
have reference to the invasion and destruction of 
Babylon, and we are to remember that the writer 
of the Apocalypse has expressly assured us that 
that is the name of the city " where our Lord was 
crucified, and which is called Babylon." 

In describing " the Day of the Lord " (a phrase 
which has been adopted by the writers of the New 
Testament and always connected with the idea of 
retribution, punishment and the like) the prophet 
says : " Behold the Day of the Lord cometh, cruel 
both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land 
desolate, and he shall destroy the sinners thereof 
out of it." Then follows the phraseology to which 
we have referred : " For the stars of heaven and 
the constellations thereof shall not give their light ; 
the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and 
the moon shall not cause her light to shine, and I 
will punish the world," etc.— 13 : 9-11. " Here," 



28 "THE DAT OF THE LORD." 

remarks Prof. Stuart, " verse 10 contains the very 
same imagery which is employed by the Saviour 
himself as recorded by Matthew 24 : 29. At least 
the fundamental idea is the same." 

Again, in Isaiah 24 : 19-23, the desolation and 
destruction of Jerusalem are predicted. Refer- 
ence should be made, also, to the prophecy of Joel 
2 : 30-31, where the scene before us is described 
with remarkable particularity : " I will show won- 
ders in the heavens, and in the earth, blood, fire, 
and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned 
into darkness and the moon into blood, before 
the great and terrible day of the Lord come." 
Peter, as is well known, quotes this passage, with 
much that precedes it, as applying to events that 
were about to take place in Palestine — the great 
changes that were soon to follow. In other words, 
we have in the verse quoted, a declaration of the 
impending judgments of God against Jerusalem, 
with imagery or costume emphatically similar to 
that in Matt. 24. Again, in Joel, chap. 3, the 
heaviest judgments are denounced against heathen 
nations who, at some future day, should come up 
against Jerusalem. Their punishment is described 
as accompanied with the same wonderful phenom- 



" THE COMING OF CHRIST." 29 

ena : " The sun and the moon shall be darkened, 
and the stars shall withdraw their shining." 

We come now to the inquiry (upon which some 
remarks may be found on a previous page) as to 
what is implied in " the coming of the Son of 
Man." Matt. 24, verse 30, asserts that, after 
certain events already specified by the Saviour as 
harbingers of his coming, he himself should be 
seen coming in the clouds of heaven," etc. This 
expression is especially relied on by the Literalist 
as altogether inapplicable to the destruction of Je- 
rusalem. That Christ did not at the time of that 
event appear " in propria persona " is admitted. 
"Therefore," says the Literalist, "it is evident 
enough that the Saviour did not intend it to apply 
to any event but that of his final coming to judg- 
ment." The soundness of this inference depends 
entirely on the fact whether Christ meant to be 
understood literally or figuratively. 

The Bible elsewhere speaks in like manner, 
without leaving us any room to suppose that the 
coming in this manner was a literal, personal, or 
visible one. When God intends to express his 
purpose to execute certain plans in respect to men, 
he speaks of coming down to earth to do it. When 



30 "the coming of the lord." 

Babel was built, "the Lord came down to see the 
city and the tower," — Gen. 11 : 5. Again, he said : 
" Let us go down, and confound their language," 
5: 7. See also Gen. 18:21 ;Exod. 3-8; 19: 18-20; 
Numb. 12:5, for examples of the same phrase. 
The prophet Isaiah, 64: 1, uses this expression, 
" Oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou 
wouldst co'me down, that the mountains might 
flow down at thy presence" 

But the apostle Paul declares God to be invis- 
ible, (i. Tim. 1 : 17), and says of him (i. Tim. 6 : 
16 " whom no man hath seen or can see" The 
apostle John says : " No man hath seen God at 
any time " (i. John 4 : 12-20). Of course all the 
scripture passages which represent him as being 
seen, or as having been seen, are not to be under- 
stood literally. They must be explained as signi- 
fying a manifestation of God, either by symbol, or 
by his agency either in punishing his enemies, or in 
protecting his people. But we are never to suppose 
a personal and visible coming. He is always and 
everywhere present, and cannot therefore come and 
go, in a literal sense. Of course we are not at lib- 
erty to give such passages a literal interpretation. 

Enough has been said respecting Old Testament 



"the coming of the lord." 31 

usage ; let us now come to the New. The only 
question with which we are concerned is, whether 
there be any other than a visible or a literal coming 
of Christ spoken of in the N. T. If there be plain 
and indubitable cases of such a nature (as we be- 
lieve there are) then it does by no means become 
a matter of necessity to allow that the coming of 
Christ spoken of in Matt. 24 : 30 should be inter- 
preted in its literal sense, and thus be referred to 
the General Judgment. 

Christ said to his disciples on one occasion : 
" If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again and receive you to myself," — John 14 : 3. 
Did he then come in proper person, visibly, when 
each of his disciples died, and take them to him- 
self? In verse 23 is a much stronger expression : 
" If any man love me, he will keep my words, and 
my Father will love him, and we will come to 
him, and make our abode with him." "Was this 
a literal, bodily coming? Turn also to Rev. 
3 : 20 ; but especially to John 21 : 22-23—" If I 
will that he tarry till I come," etc. "When was 
that coming to be ? If it was at the General Judg- 
ment then John was not to die at all, for the saints 
then alive are not to die at all, but to be immedi- 



32 "the coming of the lokd." 

ately caught up to meet the Lord in the air, doubt- 
less after a proper and necessary metamorphosis. 
This coming then, after which, and not before, 
John was to die, must have been an event which 
was to take place during that generation. And 
what could that be but his coming to punish the 
unbelieving and persecuting Jews. 

The term " coming " is used in the N. T. with 
direct reference to the coming of the Lord Jesus 
Christ twenty-five times, in not one of which is there 
the remotest reference to his coming in judgment at 
the end of the world, i. e. the end of all things. 
There can be no doubt that that term was used in 
the sense of arraigning and punishing the wicked, 
and thus it came very naturally to imply the de- 
struction of the unbelieving Jews — the destruction 
of Jerusalem and its temple by Titus. This was 
his first visitation — the first catastrophe. But 
does any man attempt to maintain that this " com- 
ing" implied a personal appearing or advent of the 
Son of Man ? Was Christ present in the year 70, 
when Jerusalem and its temple were demolished, 
or did the disciples understand him as coming in 
any other sense than that of inflicting summary 
punishment upon that guilty people ? 



''THE COMING OF THE LORD." 33 

We will next refer the Literalist to Matt. 16 : 
28 — " Verily I say unto you, there be some stand- 
ing here who shall not taste of death till they see 
the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Mark, 
in the parallel passage (9 : 1), says — " till they 
see the kingdom of God come with power ; " Luke 
(19 : 27)—" till they see the kingdom of God." The 
coming of the Son of Man, therefore, as here taught, 
is not a visible manifestation of him in any other 
method than by the agency and efficacy of gospel 
truth. It is the reign of Christ for which he 
taught us to pray : " Thy kingdom come." No- 
tice this, kind reader, we are taught to pray for the 
coming of Christ's kingdom, not for his coming. 

Further : At the close of the parable of the Ten 
Virgins (Matt. 25 : 13), Christ says to his disciples: 
" Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day 
nor the hour when the Son of Man comethP If 
now this exhortation was addressed to the disciples 
in the sense of a practical duty, and was uttered 
for the reason assigned, namely, their ignorance 
of the time of his coming, then it follows that the 
event spoken of must be some other than his com- 
ing in judgment. If not, Christ himself, as it would 
seem, must have been mistaken, and was thus lead- 
3 



34 



inghis disciples into error. How could he exhort 
them to live constantly on the watch, expecting 
his coming, if that coming was not to arrive for 
thousands of years after they were dead ? There is 
no alternative. Either the Saviour himself was 
mistaken, and so led his disciples into error, or the 
coming in question was not the final one to judg- 
ment. It must have been his coming to destroy 
Jerusalem, and the Jewish commonwealth. 

But we must look a little further, at Matt. 24 : 
14, where it is said : " This gospel of the kingdom 
must be preached in all the world for a witness to 
all nations, and then shall the end come." But 
the Apocalypse assures us that when the gospel 
has been preached among all nations, a thousand 
years are to follow before the end of the world. 
This apparent discrepancy is removed by consid- 
ering the true import of the word here translated 
world, which is properly the land of Judea or Pal- 
estine. The object of the Saviour seems to have 
been to embrace all the known world which was 
at that time occupied by the tribes of Israel. The 
word oiKov[iLvr] is thus defined by Dr. Robinson, upon 
the authority of the Apostle Paul, as we shall soon 
see. The literal end of the world then, or of the 



THE COMING OF CHRIST. 35 

earthy is not even alluded to here, for that is an 
event that is to follow the diffusion of the gospel 
through the tribes of Israel. And this took place 
before the Jewish capital or commonwealth was 
destroyed. Paul assures us (Rom. 10 : 18) that 
the messengers of gospel truth had caused " their 
sound to go forth into all the earth, and their words 
unto the ends of the world." Here the Apostle uses 
the aforesaid word olKov/ievr? in precisely the same 
sense in which it is used in Matt. 24 : 14. Again, 
he says of the gospel that it is come to the Colos- 
sians, " and into all the world " — (1 : 5, 6). And 
further, that it was "preached to every creature 
under heaven" — (v. 23). Every difficulty here van- 
ishes when we regard Paul as laboring to convince 
the Colossians that " the end of all things was at 
hand," because the gospel had been preached to all 
the tribes of Israel, and this was an event which 
was immediately to precede the end of the age, or 
dispensation. 

We know not how it is that men familiar with 
the languages in which the Bible was originally 
written, who seem to be honest in pursuit of truth, 
can come to the conclusion that all the conversa- 
tion between Christ and the disciples on the occa- 



36 WHAT COMING IS MEANT. 

sion we are considering, referred either to a second 
appearing, literal, visible, and personal, or to 
his coming at the end of time to judge the world. 
In every case, except that which is recorded in 
Matt. 25 : 31-46 (where it is conceded by all that 
his subject is the General Judgment) our Lord gives 
instructions, announces events that shall take place 
before his coming, which cannot be reconciled with 
any such idea. The advocates of Second Adven- 
tism believe that none of his instructions as to his. 
coming refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, either 
that which took place under Titus, or that which oc- 
cured under Hadrian. They stoutly maintain that 
all his teachings, on the occasion of which we are 
speaking, related to the General Judgment, and that 
every thing which he said is worthy of a higher 
interpretation than the event of the destruction of 
Jerusalem. 

Let us look, however, at his directions to his 
disciples, to ascertain whether we can find any thing 
to guide us in this matter. Matt. 24 : 2 — " Yerily 
I say unto you, there shall not be left here one 
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown 
down." Is there any thing in the scenes of the 
judgment answering to this ? Again, Christ says : 



WHAT COMING IS MEANT. 37 

" Take heed that no man deceive yon." Is there 
a possibility of any man deceiving them " when 
the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the 
holy angels with him " ? He cautions them further, 
that many would come in his name, saying " I am 
Christ." Can this prediction have reference to the 
judgment ? Will any but Christ claim to sit upon 
the throne in that day ? Passing over the predic- 
tions of wars, the rising of nation against nation, 
famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, as the begin- 
ings of sorrows, why should any man seek to kill 
the disciples at this particular time, and why at this 
important period should men betray and hate one 
another? All are summoned to judgment. Why 
seek to embarrass one another in any way, or for 
any cause ? How are we to understand the predic- 
tion : " Many false prophets shall arise ? " It would 
seem rather unnatural that such characters should 
be found in the morning of the judgment, but quite 
likely to appear before the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem. Again it was said : " He that shall endure 
to the end, the same shall be saved." End of 
what ? Of the judgment ? And who will not en- 
dure unto that end ? 

Our next inquiry concerns " the abomination of 



38 NOT FOR JUDGMENT. 

desolation, standing in the holy place," or, more 
correctly, the directions that follow it — " Then let 
them that are in Judea flee to the mountains." 
For what ? To escape the judgment ? And who 
gave such instructions as these ? The Judge him- 
self? Impossible ! And what shall become of the 
rest of the earth's inhabitants ? The directions are 
only to those occupying the land of Judea. We 
admit the pertinence and the propriety of the in- 
structions in verses 17 and 18, when men are called 
to the judgment, but this admission does not re- 
move the absurdity of the idea that the Judge 
should represent himself as counselling men to flee 
to the mountains to escape the judgment. But 
verse 20 presents another difficulty upon this 
theory. Christ, the Judge, instructs them to pray 
that their " flight " from the judgment seat " be 
not in the winter ! " 

But the reader may be referred to the record 
itself, without note or comment, from v. 20 to v. 28 
inclusive, as containing a series of statements which 
can never be reconciled with the idea that the 
" coming " of which the Saviour speaks, v. 27, is to 
be understood of the Judgment Day. He must 
have a deeper insight into things than any intelli- 



NOT FOR JUDGMENT. 39 

gent man has, or he will be able to see only the 
announcement of Christ's coming to destroy Jeru- 
salem. 

Thus far then the case is clear. Several points 
have been settled: 1. The discourse of our Lord 
up to this point does not refer to the Day of Judg- 
ment ; 2. The disciples had confined their inqui- 
ries to Jerusalem, as to the period of its destruc- 
tion and the signs which should indicate it ; 3. To 
the " coming of the Son of Man" this last ex- 
pression being understood by them all to imply 
the punishment of the Jews and the end of the 
Jewish dispensation. The part we have considered 
terminates with 24 : 28, the invasion of Jerusa- 
lem by the army with eagle ensigns ; the eagles 
are gathered around the corse, but have not yet 
devoured it. 

Luke points to the time when they " shall see 
Jerusalem compassed by armies, and then they 
should know that the desolation thereof was nigh." 
Then you will have your last opportunity to save 
yourselves by flight : then will the eagles be gath- 
ered together where the carcass is ; and " Jerusalem 
shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the 
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.' 5 



40 NOT FOR JUDGMENT. 

Here we suppose the Saviour's description of 
the First Catastrophe terminates. The questions 
put by the disciples which referred to the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem are here answered, so far as 
they are answered at all. Events, as signs of that 
destruction were at hand, and they were of a na- 
ture that would require no expositor, and lead to 
no mistake. 

In close and direct connection with this repre- 
sentation follows the passage in Matthew, which 
we regard as the prophetic record of the Second 
Catastrophe, or of Christ's Second Coming, and 
which forms the second part of our subject. 



PART II. 



THE SECOND CATASTROPHE. 

We shall introduce this event by citing the rec- 
ord given by Matthew only, agreeing in every es- 
sential particular with the record as given by Mark 
13 : 24-27, and Luke 21 : 24-28, Matt. 24 : 29-31. 
" Immediately after the tribulation of those days 
shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not 
give her light ; and the stars shall fall from heaven, 
and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken," etc. 
The Saviour, while apparently pursuing the gen- 
eral tenor of his discourse stops short, and by the 
introduction of a few words intimates that the 
theme upon which he had been dwelling was 
ended, and that another was now commenced, and 
yet an event so like to the former as scarcely to be 
distinguishable from it, except in regard to its im- 
portance. "Were it not for the words "immedi- 
ately after" etc., the reader would feel compelled 






42 THE SECOND CATASTROPHE. 

to regard the whole discourse as referring to but one 
great event. All have felt, however, a serious diffi- 
culty in the way of understanding it as referring to 
one event. An appeal to the history of the Jews, so 
far as that history was known, afforded no relief. 
One catastrophe, and only one, is recorded by Jose- 
phus, and that the destruction of Jerusalem under 
Titus. He could not speak of anything later than 
that, inasmuch as his death occurred near the close 
of the scene. 

In accordance with the above passage cited 
from Matthew, the other Evangelists specify a num- 
ber of events that were to transpire previous to the 
catastrophe to which our Lord would now direct 
the attention of his Disciples. The similitude of 
the fig-tree is introduced to impress on their minds 
the fact that it was near at hand, and the time is 
made more definite by the declaration, " Verily I 
say unto you, this generation shall not pass away 
till all these things are fulfilled." 

It will not be denied that the Saviour here re- 
ferred to one of two or three events ; either to the 
destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, or to his coming 
to judge the w^orld, or to an event which was to 
take place in the course of the time which at that 



THE SECOND CATASTROPHE. 43 

period or age of the world was called a " genera- 
tion." It has been already made abundantly 
clear that the first of these events is not referred to 
after v. 28. In respect to the hypothesis that our 
Lord is speaking of his coming to judge the world, 
we think the number is very small who will sub- 
scribe to it, since it involves the chronological ab- 
surdity that there were some standing there who 
were to live till the judgment. There remains 
then the hypothesis, which we advocate, that Christ 
referred to another, a second catastrophe, a continu- 
ance or consummation of the first, the destruction 
of the Jewish state and nationality. There are 
many, we are aware, who hold a very different view. 
They believe in what is termed a second coming 
of Christ — a personal advent and reign of the Mes- 
siah on earth for the period of a thousand years 
previous to the Millennium. 

We admit that there is a similarity in the signs 
and events that are described as antecedent to each 
catastrophe, as we have designated them. So there 
is a marked similarity in the two events — the de- 
struction of Jerusalem by Titus, A. D. 70, and the 
destruction of the same, together with that of the 
Jewish state and nationality by Hadrian, A. D. 



44 THE SECOND CATASTROPHE. 

135. And here lies the origin of that embarrass- 
ment felt even by good men, concerning the com- 
ing of Christ. They have confounded the two 
events, or have made them one. But the principal 
reason has been that the history of that nation, like 
the nation itself, almost perished from the earth. 
There was no Josephus to chronicle the second 
event ; hence the knowledge of this has been not 
only limited and incomplete, but it has been so 
long kept back from the world, that the world re- 
fuses to receive or credit it. 

Those who confound the two events alluded to 
have never been able to dispose in a satisfactory 
manner of this announcement : " Immediately after 
the events which I have related, ending, as this re- 
lation does, in the total destruction of Jerusalem, 
another series of similar or more formidable tokens 
shall announce the same." They who have felt 
this embarrassment most, have sought to escape 
from it by supposing that the verses under consid- 
eration referred to the coming of our Lord to judge 
the world. But a more formidable difficulty is 
found in the assurance that the catastrophe now 
under consideration was to be heralded by events 
that did not take place till after the destruction of 



THE SECOND CATASTROPHE. 45 

Jerusalem. " The abomination of desolation," and 
" the compassing of Jerusalem with armies," and 
also " the treading down of the city by the Gen- 
tiles," were to be subsequent to the destruction of 
the Temple. Those who have endeavored to ex- 
plain all by the hypothesis that Christ throughout 
this conversation with his disciples intends to in- 
dicate only his coming to judge the world, have 
been most seriously troubled with the words under 
consideration. And these difficulties are increas- 
ing every year. Nearly 2,000 years have already 
passed, and still the anticipated event is delayed ; 
" the end is not yet." Time and again the period 
has been fixed upon ; the year, the month, the day 
even, when there should be an end of all earthly 
things. The sun was to go down, never to rise ; 
the moon to wax old, never to be renewed. The 
humanly-appointed day arrives, but brings no ca- 
tastrophe of the kind predicted. The world moves 
on without appearing to know any thing about the 
fearful predictions of men. 

Universalism, on the other hand, had found an 
anodyne for an uneasy conscience, in the theory 
that all these predictions referred to the single 
event of the destruction of Jerusalem. The gath- 



46 THE SECOND CATASTROPHE. 

ering of all nations before Jesus Christ, as related 
by Matt. 25 : 31, etc., the separation of the wicked 
from the righteous, is the assembling of all the 
tribes of Israel in Jerusalem, at the time of its de- 
struction. The sending of the wicked into ever- 
lasting punishment and the receiving of the right- 
eous into life eternal, are events limited to the 
present life ; and life eternal is just equivalent to 
" threescore years and ten." 

The great majority of those who have confi- 
dence in the instructions of Christ still believe, how- 
ever, that " he that shall come will come, and will 
not tarry." But they look not for his personal 
appearing until he shall come to raise the dead, and 
judge the world. 

The " logic of events," therefore, as well as 
that of experience, aided by what we are compelled 
to regard as a correct exegesis of the teachings 
of Jesus, force upon us the conviction that a second 
catastrophe, and that a most fearful one to the 
Jews, was distinctly pointed out by the Saviour in 
the words which we have placed at the head of 
this division of our subject. "We are confident, 
moreover, that it can be proved by the light of his- 
tory, that the evils then foretold by our Lord came 



THE SECOND CATASTKOPHE. 47 

upon the Jewish nation during their wars with 
Hadrian, the Roman Emperor, between the year 
130 and the year 140 of the Christian era ; and that 
this desolating war was the Second Coming of 
Christ — an event for which the Second Adventist 
is now looking with anxious concern ! 

The history of the scenes through which that 
nation then passed has made the record of other 
wars and of other calamities seem as idle tales. 
Yet that history is confessedly of a meagre charac- 
ter ; but meagre as it is, there is sufficient to show 
that the declarations of Christ in respect to the evils 
that were then coming upon the nation could only 
be understood in the light of that terrible history. 
This we know : that a nation, numbering some five 
or six millions, in the course of twenty or thirty 
years goes down almost to utter extinction, and its 
sorry fragments are scattered over the civilized 
world. During the last 1500 years historians have 
searched for that people as for a paper that had been 
dropped from the portfolio of Time ; yet that search 
has for the most part been comparatively in vain. 
They have seen where that nation went down. 
The ruins of its cities and villages remain to 
speak of their former grandeur and magnificence, 



48 mtjnter's history. 

and point the inquiring traveller to portions of in- 
spired prophecy which cannot be satisfactorily ex- 
plained without a distinct recognition of this dread- 
ful event. So near did the nation come to oblivion 
that for the space of a hundred years or more the 
world appeared to know nothing of the Jews or of 
their chief city. History has rowed out upon the 
ocean of the past, in search of something, some splint- 
ered fragment, or bit of plank, to tell where and 
how the ship of State went down ; but as yet has 
found little. 

To prepare the way for a final justification of 
the exegesis we defend, there will now be produced 
what of history we have been able to glean respect- 
ing the Jews during the eventful period to which 
reference has so often been made in this treatise. 
The materials have been derived from the product 
of the indefatigable labors of Bishop Miinter, of 
Copenhagen, who has devoted half a century to 
fishing up from the profound depths of the past 
whatever could be found to throw light upon their 
mysterious disappearance. The substance of his 
discoveries we give to the reader, that he may be 
able to explain the fact, that every man who for 
the last 1700 years has believed and taught that 



munter's history 49 

our Lord was to appear in person before he came 
to judge the world, has lived to be convinced of his 
mistake, and of the error of his theory. 

It was the opinion of the late learned Dr. Ed- 
ward Robinson (Professor of Biblical Literature 
in the Union Theological Seminary, in New York 
City,) that the treatise to which we have just re- 
ferred, and the substance of which we are about 
to introduce (from the Bibliotheca Sacra, 1843), 
throws light upon a most difficult and important 
subject — that of the Second Coming of Christ. He 
speaks of this historical work of Miinter as " col- 
lecting and embodying all the fragmentary notices 
relating to a dark yet most interesting portion of 
Jewish history — a portion, too, having a very impor- 
tant bearing upon the right interpretation of those 
instructions of our Lord Jesus Christ which are sup- 
posed to refer solely to the Day of Judgment. 
Had we the same minute and vivid picture," he con- 
tinues, " of the extent and horrors of this tragedy 
of the Jewish people which is presented to us by 
Josephus in regard to the siege and downfall of the 
Holy City by Titus, it may be doubted whether 
the interest and historical importance of that final 
overthrow would not be found to equal, or even 



50 munter's history. 

surpass, that of the antecedent catastrophe." The 
bearing of these events upon the prophetic declar- 
ations to which we have just alluded, he has given 
in another article, in the same volume of the Bib- 
liotheca Sacra, in which he satisfactorily shows 
that the passage of scripture more particularly 
under consideration (Matt. 24 : 29-31), must have 
referred to the Jewish state and nation in an event 
which came near proving their utter extinction as 
well as oblivion. This is our reason for citing it. 
We bespeak for it a most careful perusal, not only 
on the account just mentioned, but because we 
regard it as a key to the right understanding of 
several important passages of scripture — especially 
in the prophecy of Daniel, and also of the Apoc- 
alypse. This history was prepared but a few years 
ago, and, for want of it, every commentator who 
has attempted to explain those prophecies has 
found himself involved in inextricable difficulties, 
and has learned that he was attempting to explain 
what he had not the means of understanding. 
This production, from which we are about to 
quote, settles forever the question of Christ's 
Second Coming. No man can read it and be- 
lieve it, without being convinced that it records 



munter's history. 51 

the very calamities to which Christ referred, as 
described in Matt. 24: 29-31, and in the corres- 
ponding passages of the other Evangelists. 
These points fteing settled, the advocate of a 
premillennial and personal advent of Christ is 
driven to the wall, and his theory with him. 
There are not wanting, in our estimation, argu- 
ments from the sacred record itself sufficient to 
establish this position, if that record be rightly 
construed; but if there are deficiencies, the his- 
tory we are now to quote furnishes a satisfactory 
supplement. 



THE JEWISH WAR 
UNDER TRAJAN AND HADRIAN. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

The protracted and bloody war carried on by 
the Jews and Romans under the Emperors Trajan 
and Hadrian, is a subject which has not been suffi- 
ciently known. Yet it is not only of great import- 
ance to Jewish and the earliest ecclesiastical history, 
but it will contribute to lower the opinion almost 
universally entertained of the prosperity enjoyed by 
the Roman Empire in the period extending from 
Nerva to Commodus. A revolt repeatedly sup- 
pressed and ever breaking out anew, in which prob- 
ably the whole Jewish nation took part ; which con- 
tinued either openly or secretly through a course 
of more than twenty years ; in which several 
blooming provinces were laid waste, and many hun- 
dred thousands perished by the sword and other 
disasters of war, while countless multitudes for- 
feited their possessions and their freedom ; and 
whose after-throes must have extended through the 



THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 53 



next following ages — such a revolt cannot be reck- 
oned among the minor calamities of the Roman 
Empire. Indeed the second Jewish war would 
certainly not yield in historical interest to the first, 
did we possess as full and correct an account of its 
occurrences as Josephus has given us of the former. 
We are able to determine or conjecture only 
from scattered fragments its extent, duration, and 
importance. 

" To collect and to arrange these fragments," 
says Dr. Miinter, " is the object I have proposed to 
myself: a toilsome undertaking, truly, for all the 
notices are so brief, so incoherent, and not unfre- 
quently so contradictory, that one can often only 
guess at the connection; and success, even here, often 
depends upon the fact whether the writer who 
treats of this subject has acquired a true historical 
feeling ; although this again is liable to lead into 
error. The most connected account is afforded in 
Xiphilin's Extract from the sixty-eighth and sixty- 
ninth books of Dion Cassius, and by Eusebius in 
the 4th Book of his Ecclesiastical History. But 
how brief is even this ! All else must be gleaned 
from solitary intimations in other and meagre his- 
torical productions of those times, the chronicles 



54 THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 

and the writings of the Fathers. Ancient coins 
yield a few spoils ; of inscriptions we have only 
a single one; and the notices scattered through 
the Jewish writers — partly of a very modern date — 
are of such a quality that at first one will be inclined 
to pass them over altogether ; although one after- 
wards may be induced to consult them, but with 
great caution, and to make use of them where they 
appear in a measure to supply chasms, and where 
the mutual agreement of authorities speaks for the 
truth of the substance of what they state." 



AEGUMENT DEEIVED 
FEOM THE SECOND JEWISH WAE. 

I. The Jewish War, under Vespasian, was 
brought to a close by the taking of Jerusalem and 
the destruction of the City and Temple. The sub- 
jugated nation had now lost the central point of 
their religion, and thus were long deprived of the 
hope of seeing their old expectations of a Messianic 
kingdom in the Holy City fulfilled. The dislike 
and contempt entertained against them by the 
Eomans had been greatly increased, and many 
thousands of Israelites who had survived th& for- 
tune of war were deprived of their liberty, placed 
in the most wretched condition, and removed far 
away from their native land. But this last misfor- 
tune happened to those only who fell into the 
power of their conquerors with arms in their hands, 
for the- many Jewish colonies which had settled 
before in the provinces of the Eoman Empire, and 
which, at least apparently, had kept themselves 
quiet during the war, were not involved in the 
misfortunes of the Jews of Palestine, and retained 
the undisturbed enjoyment of their rights and lib- 



56 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

erties ; although it may readily be supposed that 
the government watched them with greater strict- 
ness, and no longer favored them in the same degree 
as formerly. One burden only they were all obliged 
to bear. The yearly tax of two drachmae, which 
every Israelite over twenty years of age paid to the 
Temple as long as it was standing in Jerusalem, 
they were now compelled (if they wished to pre- 
serve their religious freedom) to pay to the Temple 
of Jupiter Capitolinus, a Roman Deity ; and to 
what immense sums this tribute, although not very 
oppressive on individuals, must have amounted, 
may easily be imagined from the very remarkable 
populousness of the Jews, who certainly amounted 
to several millions. (Michaelis supposes there were 
from five to six millions at that time.) 

Every one that knows the character of the Jew- 
ish people, their attachment to the religion of their 
fathers, and their bitter hatred against Paganism, 
can imagine with what feelings they paid this tax 
(held hitherto so sacred) to an impure idol temple. 
No wonder then, that whoever could, sought to es- 
cape from it. Many a one may have even denied 
being a Jew, in case he was able to obliterate the 
corporeal marks of his religion by a means to which 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAK. 57 

Paul (i. Cor. 7: 18,) alludes, especially after the au- 
thorities began to institute judicial investigations, 
one of which Suetonius reports as an eye-witness. 
The universal contempt entertained for this un- 
happy people, together with the greediness of the 
officials connected with the revenue, may have 
given rise, under the tyrannical reign of Domitian, 
to many oppressive acts, false accusations, and 
harsh exactions of the tribute. And this moved 
the noble Nerva to the edict which, if it did not 
take off the tax, yet put an end to the misconduct 
that had been practised in its collection, and was re- 
garded as so benevolent that the Senate sought to 
perpetuate the remembrance of it by a separate coin, 
bearing the legend FISCI JUDAICI C ALUM- 
MA SUBLATA. But that the government should 
hold the Israelites remaining in Palestine under a 
strict supervision, was very natural ; and it cannot 
be made a matter of reproach to Domitian, that, on 
receiving information of the survivors of the family 
of David that were still living there, he had two 
relatives of Jesus, grand-children of his brother 
Jacob, brought to Rome. He convinced himself, 
however, of their innocence, and let them return 
to their homes in peace. 



58 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

II. Still, all the hopes of the Israelites for better 
times had not yet expired. They continued ever- 
more to console themselves with the expectation of 
the Messiah. Even supposing that Theudas left no 
adherents behind him, there certainly remained 
many of the party of Judas of Galilee, who, during 
the siege of Jerusalem, had played so conspicuous, 
and, for the people, so fatal, a part. And that even 
the Alexandrine Jews still flattered themselves with 
hopes for the future is probable from the drama of 
the poet Ezekiel, entitled " The Departure out of 
Egypt," of which no inconsiderable fragments are 
found in Clemens of Alexandria, and in Eusebius, 
and who, perhaps, lived towards the end of the first 
century of the Christian era ; while the example of 
that wondrous deliverance of the Jewish people 
from Egyptian bondage was well calculated to nour- 
ish and keep alive the expectation of a similar 
release from the Roman sway. Perhaps, too, the 
Apocryphal Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, 
which appears to belong to the same period, had a 
similar tendency. 

But on the other hand, the courage of the un- 
happy people was too much repressed by the 
destruction of their capital for them to venture so 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 59 

soon again on attempts for their liberation, the re- 
sult of which could by no means be doubtful. On 
the other hand, they were perhaps somewhat tran- 
quillized by the moderation which Nerva exhib- 
ited towards them, and by the mildness of the gov- 
ernment of his successors. The fire, however, 
continued to smolder beneath the ashes, and there 
needed only some external stimulus to accelerate 
the outbreak. Nerva, by his edict, had only sought 
to alleviate the abuses that existed in the collection 
of the tax to Jupiter Capitolinus. But wise and 
philanthropic as Trajan was, and careful as he and 
the Senate, after his example, were, in selecting 
the governors of the provinces, it surpassed human 
powers to hold in check all the subordinate func- 
tionaries ; and many complaints never reached the 
Emperor, who, involved in arduous wars, was forced 
to be absent from Rome during a great part of his 
reign. Add to this the constan tly increasing hatred 
and scorn entertained by the Romans for the Jews, 
and it will easily be comprehended how, by de- 
grees, now that an age had already passed by since 
the destruction of Jerusalem, a new insurrection 
was prepared and ready to break out ; and that, 
too, not at first in Palestine, where the people 



60 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

dwelt in smaller numbers, and perhaps also under 
heavier subjection, but in regions that had not suf- 
fered by the war, and where the Jewish colonies 
existed in wealth and comfort. And, although this 
revolt showed itself only in single provinces, yet, 
after weighing all the circumstances, it is more 
than probable that a great, perhaps the greatest, 
part of the nation had a share in it, and favored 
and supported it, at least in secret. 

III. Egypt and Cyrene were without doubt the 
countries in which the Jews had spread themselves 
the most. Every one knows how rich, how pow- 
erful, and how highly favored by the government 
that people were in Alexandria, from the time of 
the first Ptolemies. Not less fortunate was their 
condition in the province of Cyrenaica, so inti- 
mately connected with Egypt. The first Ptolemy 
had permitted them to settle there. The religious 
persecutions of the Syrian king, Antiochus Epi- 
phanes, had induced many to betake themselves to 
this country, which was not subjected to his rule. 
In every city of Cyrenaica dwelt Jews in the full 
enjoyment of equal rights with the Greeks ; and 
their prosperity is evinced not alone by their hav- 
ing, together with the Alexandrians, a synagogue 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 61 

in Jerusalem, but also from the circumstance re- 
corded in the inscription of Berenice, that in this 
city, as well as in Alexandria and other cities, and 
hence most probably throughout Cyrenaica, they 
were under their own magistrates. But here also 
they had restless spirits among them. Shortly 
after the destruction of Jerusalem, a weaver, one 
Jonathan, had succeeded in misleading about 2,000 
persons by promises of signs and wonders. It is 
true that the wealthier and more respectable took 
no part in this project, and even gave warning to 
the Eoman governor, Catullus. The latter fell 
upon their seducer, slaughtered many, and caused 
3,000 more rich Jews to be put to death in Eygpt ; 
after which he boasted of having obtained a victory 
over the nation. But when he communicated the 
matter to the Emperor, with many embellishments 
to his own advantage, and thereupon made his ap- 
pearance in Rome with the prisoners, among whom 
Jonathan also was, Yespasian and Titus were in- 
formed, doubtless by the historian Josephus, who 
was under accusation in company with other 
Eoman and Alexandrine Jews, of the true state of 
the case. Jonathan paid the penalty of his crime 
with his life. Catullus, on the contrary, escaped 



62 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

the punishment he deserved, through the clem- 
ency of the Emperor, but died shortly after. 

IV. Since that time, so far as we know, all had 
been quiet in the province of Oyrenaica, at least 
in appearance, under Trajan's mild and at the 
same time powerful and virtuous sway. The prov- 
inces of the Roman Empire that lay at a distance 
from the frontiers enjoyed an undisturbed repose ; 
and it was not till he became involved in the ardu- 
ous Parthian war that the Jews could venture to 
take up arms. Their revolt, however, must have 
been concerted and prepared long before ; otherwise 
it could not have spread so far, and with so much 
violence. 

Did we still possess the Ecclesiastical History 
of Aristo of Pella, which Eusebius made use of, or 
the History of the Jewish War under Hadrian, by 
the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, who in all prob- 
ability was a contemporary, and of whom Minucius 
Felix and Gellius make mention ; or were we bet- 
ter acquainted with the contents of the Samaritan 
Book of Joshua, so called, we should doubtless be 
more particularly informed as to the circumstances. 
As it is, we must content ourselves with what little 
we obtain from Dion Cassius, Eusebius, and some 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 63 

others, partly very corrupt sources ; and cannot even 
adduce, with certainty, the immediate cause of the 
insurrection in the province of Cyrenaica. Per- 
haps, however, it was no other than the fact that 
there were then but few troops in those regions, 
inasmuch as Trajan had probably taken with him 
all the forces that could be spared from the provin- 
ces for the Parthian war. 

It was in the year of Rome 868, A. D. 115, in 
the 18th and 19th year of Trajan's reign, under the 
Consuls, M. V. Messala and M. V. Pedo, when the 
Emperor had in the spring attacked and completely 
subdued Armenia, after expelling Parthamasiris, 
the king set up by the Parthians, that the insur- 
rection broke out in Cyrenaica. With incredible 
quickness, says Orosius, the Jews at the same time 
broke loose in different countries, as though they had 
gone mad. The flame of war soon spread to 
Egypt, and thus took a direction of the last impor- 
tance to the Roman state. For Alexandria was 
one of the principal granaries of Rome, which 
for one-third of the year was furnished with the 
necessary supply by the grain flotillas that regu- 
larly sailed from that city. Consequently the Em- 
perors had given their particular attention to Egypt, 



64: ARGUMENT DERIVED 

and it had been a maxim ever since the time of 
Augustus, to intrust the government of that coun- 
try to none but a Roman knight, and to allow no 
Senator or distinguished knight to make the jour- 
ney thither without special permission. The cen- 
tre of the revolt was Cyrenaica. Thence it* spread 
over the inhabitants of the country, who were 
slaughtered in droves. Dion Cassius, or rather his 
epitomist Xiphilin, draws a frightful picture of 
the barbarities committed by the Jews upon the 
Greeks. They slew them, he says ; they stripped 
off their skins, and then covered themselves with 
them ; they sawed many of them in two, length- 
wise; they devoured their flesh and wound the 
entrails around their own bodies ; they cast them 
to wild beasts ; they forced them to fight as gladi- 
ators with one another ; and in such modes they 
put 200,000 to death. 

That the slaughter was immense can by no 
means be doubted ; even E. David Ganz, of the 
16th century, says in Zemach David, one of the 
best Jewish authorities upon the history of this 
war, that the Romans and Greeks slain in Africa 
by the Jews were like the sand on the sea-shore, 
that cannot be numbered. But the cannibal fury. 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 65 

which the Jews are accused of, is altogether incred- 
ible ; as they would thereby have rendered them- 
selves in the highest degree " unclean." What we 
are to assume as true, is this : that in a sudden and 
widely-extended rising they destroyed many Ro- 
mans and Greeks, and that in the amphitheatres 
they threw many to wild beasts, or forced them to 
fight with each other. Indeed, it is known that 
they attended exhibitions of the kind ; and they 
may have desired to repay the Romans, in this 
manner, for the combats with wild beasts, and as 
gladiators, in which the latter had employed the 
Jewish captives after the taking of Jerusalem. The 
sawing in pieces seems to have been a well-known 
mode of execution among them. But can that, 
which may have taken place in single instances, be 
supposed to have occurred throughout a general 
insurrection, in which men were slaughtered by 
thousands ? At most, then, only some individuals 
can have suffered such a death. How the rising 
was suppressed, we know not. The quieting of 
Cyrenaica was probably a consequence of the restor- 
ation of tranquillity in Egypt ; but it required a 
length of time, and cost rivers of blood, before this 

end was obtained. 
5 



66 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

Egypt appears to have been stripped of troops, 
which were probably needed by the Emperor for 
the Parthian war ; for the revolt kept continually 
spreading. Its leader is named Lucuas by Euse- 
bius ; and by Dion Cassius, Andreas. Perhaps, 
like many Jews of that period, he bore a double 
name, one Jewish, the other Roman ; for Lucuas 
appears to be a corruption of Lucius. The Jews 
flocked to him on all sides, and greeted him as the 
King of Israel. One nomos (district) after another 
was laid waste, as far up as the Thebaid ; indeed 
the Jewish bands appear to have pushed on beyond 
the boundaries of the Roman Empire, even into 
Ethiopia, and probably to the state of Meroe, where 
many Jews resided. Even in Alexandria, where 
the nation found itself in the most prosperous con- 
dition, a revolt appears to have taken place, in 
which great havoc was committed, although the 
Jews can hardly have mastered that great and opu- 
lent city, of which they possessed only a single quar- 
ter. It was not till the following year, A. U. 0. 
869, A. D. 116, that the troops were assembled ; 
and then, apparently, they were not sufficiently nu- 
merous, for they were driven back in the first bat- 
tle. They retired, however, in good order to Alex- 



FKOM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 67 

andria, which city they also defended, and where 
they effected a dreadful slaughter among the Jews. 
Rabbi David Ganz, in the Meor Enaim, gives, 
according to the testimony of R. Asaria de Rossi (in 
what age he lived is not accurately known), the num- 
ber of the slain at 200,000. Lucuas and his com- 
rades, however, seem to have given themselves no 
further trouble about Alexandria, but to have di- 
rected their efforts exclusively to the land of their 
forefathers ; and if there be any truth in the tradi- 
tion in Albulpharagius, that he led his hosts into 
Palestine, the expedition must have taken place at 
this time, and before the great general Marcius 
Turbo could come to the assistance of the sorely- 
afflicted province. This officer, who, little as we 
know of him, was accounted one of the best of Tra- 
jan's captains, was now despatched by the Emperor 
against Lucuas with a body of infantry and cav- 
alry, which, without doubt, was equipped in Syria 
or Phenicia, and was destined to keep the sea open ; 
for this was now of the last importance, as the re- 
volt had also broken out in Cyprus, and everything 
depended on preventing Rome from lacking a sup- 
ply of corn. We are thus obliged to conclude that 
the Jews also possessed ships ; which, as they were 



68 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

then masters of Cyrenaica and Cyprus, is easily 
explained. Turbo had at least two legions of reg- 
ular troops, together with the auxiliaries belonging 
to them, but was obliged to purchase the victory 
dearly, for several bloody battles took place, in 
which many thousand Egyptian and Cyrenian 
Jews perished, and certainly many thousand Ro- 
mans also. According to the Arabic text of Albul- 
pharagius, Turbo sought out Lucuas in Palestine, 
and there destroyed his army. He speaks of many 
small skirmishes. This system of petty warfare was 
quite suited to the locality of Palestine, as will also 
be seen in the sequel of this history. The same Ara- 
bic text states, moreover, that Lucuas was killed in 
Palestine. 

V. In Egypt, tranquillity seems now to have 
been restored. The slaughter of the Jews, whether 
in Palestine or in Egypt, itself terrified them all. 
But was it the Jews alone, and not, perhaps, the 
native Egyptians also, that rose against the Rom- 
ans? That these latter were likewise turbulent, 
and bore the Roman yoke with an ill-will, can 
scarce be doubted. The insurrection of the Bu- 
coli under Marcus Aurelius, furnishes a clear proof 
of the fact. Were the dialogue of Philopatris 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 69 

found in Lucian's writings genuine, the passage at 
the close, where Egypt is spoken of as subdued, 
might certainly be explained as referring to Tra- 
jan's victory over the rebellious Jews and Egyp- 
tians. But this production belongs, probably, to a 
later Lucian, who lived in the time of the Emperor 
Julian, as "Wieland has lately maintained from in- 
ternal grounds. 

But great and extensive as the insurrection of 
Egypt may have been, still, Alexandria was not in 
it. It is true that Alexandria, having been de- 
stroyed by the Jews, was restored by the Emperor 
Hadrian, in the first year of his reign. But, 
although it may have suffered much in these dis- 
turbances, and in those which, perhaps, broke out 
there shortly after Trajan's death, destroyed it 
certainly was not. 

VI. While Egypt was now in a state of repose, 
the insurrection raged in Cyprus. The number 
of Jews in that island was very great. The trade 
with Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, had drawn 
many thither, and their condition must have been 
very prosperous. The leader of the revolt, of whom 
we know nothing further, was named Artemion. 
According to Dion Cassius, the Jews in Cyprus 



70 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

put to death 240,000 persons. Eusebius states in 
his Chronicon that they took Salamis, put the 
Greeks to death and razed the city to the ground. 
Jewish accounts also assert that they destroyed all 
the Greeks in the island and in the neighboring 
countries, and that Trajan was obliged to send 
Hadrian, his sister's son, to Cyprus in order to 
subdue them. All this is certainly exaggerated : 
240,000 persons, together with 220,000 in Cyren- 
aica, making all together more than half a million, 
would not so easily, or rather without the most 
strenuous resistance, allow themselves to be put to 
death ; and so fruitful a country as Cyprus had at 
that time certainly not less than a million of inhab- 
itants, of which, however, the Jews could not by 
far have constituted the largest part. Salamis, 
also, remained thereafter, as it had been before, the 
capital of Cyprus, and received in the time of 
Constantine the name of Constantia. Its bishop, 
Epiphanius, is also known to Church history. It was 
at length destroyed by Saracens, under Heraclius. 
It is therefore probable that Salamis was plun- 
dered and set on fire by the Jews, an event 
which later historiographers have turned into a 
total destruction. The tumults in Cyprus were 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 71 

soon suppressed, either by Turbo or by Lucius 
Quietus. The Jews were completely exterminated, 
or at least were driven out of the island ; for Dion 
Cassius relates that none of this people could dwell 
there, and that any who were driven on shore by 
stress of weather were immediately put to death. 
This also is not to be taken literally, and must at 
any rate be understood only of the period immedi- 
ately succeeding the revolt. 

VII. The circumstances of the period, without 
doubt, rendered the rising of the Jews in Mesopo- 
tamia still more dangerous. They were very 
wealthy and powerful in this province. Of the ten 
tribes who had been carried away in former times 
into the kingdom of Assyria, by far the greater part 
remained behind, when Cyrus and his successors 
gave the Jews permission to return to the land of 
their forefathers. The cities on both banks of the 
Euphrates in particular were filled with them. Ac- 
cording to Philo, they were spread over Babylon 
and other satrapies. They had their own Patriarch, 
of the family of David, who was possessed of great 
privileges under the Parthian government. They 
came in multitudes to Jerusalem at the time of the 
festivals ; and under Caligula, the prefect Petronius 



72 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

was so struck with their numbers that he feared a 
powerful aid might come from that quarter, were 
the Jews to oppose by force of arms the Emperor's 
decree to set up his image in the Temple ; and it 
cannot be doubted that from the ruins of the Jew- 
ish state not a few escaped to their co-religionists 
in the Parthian dominions. 

The hatred of the Jews against the Romans may 
easily be conceived, and in each Parthian war they 
no doubt devoted themselves with all their hearts 
to their protectors, the Parthian Emperors, to whom 
their assistance must have been exceedingly wel- 
come. This, too, must have rendered a revolt in 
the rear of their army so much the more hazardous 
to the Romans. Trajan probably still remained 
with a part of his legions in Armenia, whence, as 
this country became tranquillized, he gradually 
withdrew into Mesopotamia. Here, no doubt, it 
was, in the regions which the Romans had not yet 
been able to occupy, that the Jews broke out into 
insurrection. The Emperor committed their sup- 
pression or entire expulsion to Lucius Quietus, a 
Mauritanian, who was considered one of his most 
distinguished generals, who had done him signal 
service in the Parthian war, and had taken Nisibis 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 73 

and Edessa : a proof how important the Emperor 
held the matter to be. Lucius subdued the Jews 
with much bloodshed, but incontestable with great 
loss on his own side also ; for the bravery which 
the Jews were wont to exhibit, when combatting 
for their freedom and religion, is well known. Tra- 
jan was so well satisfied with the service done him, 
that he conferred on Lucius the governorship of 
Palestine — of course with the charge of preserving 
tranquillity, and, provided there be anything in 
the story of Lucuas' irruption, to put down him or 
his still remaining adherents. And thus Lucius 
appears to have restored order for a while. 

VIII. With the disturbances in Mesopotamia 
we are perhaps to connect the martyrdom of St. 
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who, it seems, was 
tried in this metropolis of Asia, and then sent to 
Home to be executed. The story of his martyrdom 
has often been called in question ; and especially by 
Martini. But how can the credibility of the most 
ancient church history be maintained if we attack 
even those statements which are confirmed by the 
most respectable testimonies ? Nevertheless, as the 
precise period of his death is uncertain, we must as- 
sume that Trajan sentenced him during his second 



74 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

stay in Antioch, in the year 115 ; his first visit to 
that city having been in A. D. 105. The Chris- 
tians were not there so accurately distinguished 
from the Jews, but that the Emperor, although he 
might have attained more correct information and 
better ideas respecting them from the trials held in 
Bithynia by the younger Pliny a few years before, 
was continually confounding them one with 
another ; and this especially in the East, and in 
provinces that were filled with Jews, where the 
greater part of the Christians had previously pro- 
fessed Judaism, or were of Jewish origin. If now 
Trajan learned that Ignatius was one of the heads 
of the Christians, he might easily regard him as a 
party to the Jewish attacks on the Empire ; and 
this it was — not the earthquake that had just de- 
vastated Antioch, and from which it is said the 
priests took occasion to accuse the Bishop — that 
may have excited Trajan against the venerable old 
man. Indeed, the whole trial as it stands (perhaps 
not wholly authentic) in the Acta Martyrum, ex- 
hibits an acrimony which in this noble and philan- 
thropic prince is truly surprising, but which may 
be accounted for by supposing that he confounded 
the Syrian Christians with the Jews, or at least re- 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 75 

garded them as belonging to the same party. That 
Hadrian also, at a later period, was not able to dis- 
tinguish between them with readiness, will be seen 
in the sequel. If such be really the case, the reason 
is evident why Trajan, after having passed sen- 
tence of death on Ignatius, did not cause him to be 
executed at Antioch, but sent him to Rome, there 
to be torn in pieces by wild beasts as a rebel. That 
is, it was an object with him to strike terror into 
the great body of the Jews in the Roman Empire 
by the cruel execution of one whom he regarded as 
the chief of a party in the East, and thus deter them 
from insurrections. All this, however, I offer as 
nothing but a conjecture, which perhaps has more 
plausibility than truth. 

IX. Trajan died in the twentieth year of his 
reign, A. D. 117. Hadrian succeeded him without 
opposition, made peace with the Parthians, to whom 
he restored the provinces conquered by Trajan on the 
other side of the Euphrates, and hastened to Rome. 
But as soon as he found himself firmly seated on 
the throne, he commenced, apparently in the year 
120, his celebrated tours through all the provinces 
of the empire. It is true that of these journeys 
historians have left us little on record, but there 



76 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

are so many monuments everywhere extant relating 
to them, and they are testified to by so many in- 
scriptions and coins, that they well deserve to be 
accurately investigated in a separate Dissertation ; 
which would doubtless furnish very interesting re- 
sults. In the regions with which we are at pres- 
ent concerned we first find him between the years 
129 and 131. 

Through all this period the Jews seemed to 
have kept themselves tolerably quiet ; if we except 
a brief revolt in Palestine, immediately after Tra- 
jan's death, of which Spartian and Eusebius make 
mention. The former speaks in general terms of 
insurrectionary movements in this country, with 
which, perhaps, the disturbances in Egypt, to which 
he alludes, were connected. 

Eusebius, however, records that Hadrian in his 
first year subdued the Jews, who had for the third 
time revolted against the Romans, perhaps in Alex- 
andria. It was, therefore, probably a remnant of 
the war against Trajan, which had been brought to 
a close a short time before, and was now completely 
extinguished. The breaking out of these disturb- 
ances may have been connected with the disgrace 
into which Lucius Quietus fell. For Hadrian, 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 77 

whose adoption by Trajan was very equivocal, con- 
ceived against this great general a suspicion of a 
design upon the throne, in consequence of an im- 
peachment by his praetorian prefect Tatian, where- 
upon he deprived him of the command of Maure- 
tanian troops, who were very much devoted to him, 
as being their own countryman. This may have 
given the Jews courage to make a new attempt, 
which, however, can hardly have been of great im- 
portance. Since that time all had been quiet in 
Palestine likewise. Hadrian was there in the year 
130, A. U. 0. 883 ; for we have coins of Gaza 
commencing with a new era, that of his visit to 
this city. To this period belong the Roman coins 
that make mention of his journey to this country, 
and of the benefits conferred on it. 

In Egypt Hadrian seems now to have consid- 
ered himself safe, as far as regards the Jews. He 
noticed them, indeed, as he did everything else 
that came in his way ; but it was with a rapid and 
superficial glance. 

X. It was very natural that Hadrian, during 
the first years of his reign, while the Jews re- 
mained tranquil, should often occupy himself with 
them, and with pondering the means of securing 



78 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

the empire against their attempts for the future. 
One of these means was perhaps that of dividing 
the numerous population among the different prov- 
inces. But it may well have been difficult to find 
places for them. Asia, Greece, Italy, and Spain 
hardly wished for any more of them than they had 
already. The coast of Africa offered, perhaps, the 
only tract of land whither he could have trans- 
planted any more than a small number, and even 
this may not have appeared to him advisable, 
when he reflected on the revolt in Cyrenaica. 

Another means Hadrian seems actually to have 
tried, and this was, gradually to extirpate the Jews 
as such by prohibiting circumcision, the character- 
istic sign of their nationality, and to amalgamate 
them with the other peoples of the empire. This 
prohibition is mentioned in a few words by Spar- 
tian as the cause of insurrection. He does not in- 
deed fix the time ; but it seems evident from his 
narration that the outbreak followed soon after. 

XI. Another means contrived by Hadrian for 
keeping the Jews in subjection, was the restoration 
of Jerusalem. This city had always been consid- 
ered one of the strongest fortified places ; and was 
found to be so in the time of Titus. Surrounded 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 79 

by mountains, itself built on a rocky promontory, 
almost completely isolated, forming the hill called 
Mount Zion, and that on which the lower city stood 
— the reduction of Jerusalem, in the then state of 
the art of besieging, was necessarily a very tedious 
operation, and to be effected chiefly by famine ; so 
that Hadrian, who in the journey from Syria to 
Egypt was at least in its neighborhood, if he did 
not visit the place itself, must have been perfectly 
well convinced of the importance of this post. No 
wonder, therefore, that he determined to fortify it 
anew, and to send thither a colony, consisting in- 
deed mostly of veterans, and sufficient for the de- 
fence of the city. Dion Cassius cites this deter- 
mination of the Emperor, and the carrying it into 
execution, as a cause of the renewal of the insur- 
rection. Eusebius states, on the contrary, that 
Hadrian did not send the colony till after the Jews 
were put down. It is not difficult to reconcile 
both these apparently contradictory testimonies, as 
Basnage has done already. The restoration of 
Jerusalem was not the work of a few months ; but 
the labor, when begun, was interrupted by the re- 
volt ; and after this was suppressed, the labor was 
continued and completed. 



80 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

But ere we proceed further, we must collect the 
few notices that have been preserved respecting the 
history of Jerusalem after the capture of the.city 
by Titus. "Witsius and Deyling are our guides. 

It is true that Titus, after the burning of the 
Temple, which he would so willingly have spared, 
destroyed the city. But we cannot conceive this 
destruction to have been complete, although Jose- 
phus speaks of it in that sense. The same histo- 
rian, however, informs us that Titus left standing 
the three large towns — Hippicus, Phasael, and 
Mariamne — probably with the wall connecting 
them, and the western wall as a shelter for the 
cohorts whom he left in that neighborhood ; and 
these must also have had dwellings for themselves, 
their families, and their followers. It is very prob- 
able, moreover, that Jews who had taken no part 
in the war had permission from the author- 
ities, either expressed or understood, to settle 
among the ruins. A few survivors of the tribes of 
Judah and Benjamin remained there immediately 
after the destruction of the city ; but it is certainly 
going too far, when Eusebius affirms that only half 
the city was destroyed by Titus, for this is at vari- 
ance with all history, and we can only assume with 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 81 

the greatest probability, that Jerusalem under 
Titus, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan, was indeed no 
longer a city, but that it still possessed inhabitants 
beside the Roman garrison, and was much visited 
by pious Jews who came to mourn over their city 
and temple. Jerome also speaks of some remains 
of the city and temple in the fifty years that elapsed 
between its destruction by Titus and the war with 
Hadrian. With this, too, agrees what we read in 
ancient authors respecting the war with Hadrian 
and the second capture of Jerusalem. Were Occo the 
numismatist a trustworthy man, we might cite an 
ancient coin pretended to have been struck under 
Hadrian, and conclude therefrom that the name 
Jerusalem still continued under Hadrian, before he 
brought his colony thither, and that a temple of 
Jupiter was built in the city. But the coin spoken 
of has remained unknown to later numismatists ; 
and it is not at all probable that such a one ever 
existed. The garrison of Jerusalem in its former 
condition, as they were neither a colony nor a 
municipium, could not have struck any coins ; the 
erecting, too, of a temple to Jupiter upon the ruins, 
would certainly have been noticed by some Jewish 
or Christian author. 
6 



82 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

We confine ourselves, therefore, to the assump* 
tion that Hadrian, before the breaking out again 
of the war, had already begun to put his design of 
rebuilding and fortifying Jerusalem into execution. 
We remark only in addition, that he could do this 
without offending against the principles of the 
Roman-state religion ; since this only forbade the 
rebuilding of a city once in ruins in case the plough 
had passed over it, and the exauguration or exfoun- 
dation had been thereby rendered complete. We 
have no proof, however, that this ceremony did 
take place, after the capture by Titus. Josephus 
is entirely silent respecting it ; and Jerome only 
relates, according to the Jewish traditions which 
we also possess, that Titus Annius Rufus caused 
the plough to be drawn over the site of the Tem- 
ple. But that is said to have been done in Hadri- 
an's time. And even this is very doubtful, since 
we do not know that the Romans observed the 
practice with regard to single buildings. There 
was therefore nothing in the Emperor's way, in 
case he wished to rebuild Jerusalem. Moreover 
the Gracchi undertook to rebuild Carthage, which 
had been desecrated and laid waste with such solem- 
nities ; — although at a short distance from the old 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 83 

city ; and from the ruins of Punic Carthage that 
of the Romans sprang, the fourth capital of the 
world. 

XII. But the restoration of their metropolis in 
the shape of a Pagan city was more than the Jews 
could bear. It is possible that they had for sev- 
eral years been silently preparing anew for the 
project of freeing themselves from the Roman 
dominion, and had long entered into secret com- 
pacts with the people of other Oriental regions, to 
whom the yoke of their masters was equally hate- 
ful, perhaps even with Parthian satraps, or with 
the great King himself. It is only the enduring 
contempt of the Romans for the oppressed people 
w T hich renders it conceivable that they entertained 
no suspicions, and made no preparations, easily as 
they might have done so, to frustrate the plans of 
their enemies. They felt secure, probably because 
they had disarmed the Jews after suppressing their 
revolt. If Dion were to be believed, the latter 
devised a curious expedient for relieving them- 
selves from this dilemma. It is said that they, 
meaning doubtless the numerous prisoners con- 
demned by Trajan to the public works, were 
ordered to forge weapons for the Roman troops, but 



84 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

that they intentionally made them bad, so that 
when rejected as unfit for service they could keep 
them themselves, and thus become possessed of a 
large quantity of arms. But this statement carries 
with it an aspect so fabulous, that it is inconceiva- 
ble how Dion could have given it the least atten- 
tion ; for how could Roman commanders, who nec- 
essarily knew well enough the spirit that animated 
the whole Jewish people, have suffered the work- 
men, and they too prisoners, to retain possession of 
arms, with which, bad as they might be, they could 
have wrought much mischief? and how could the 
superintendents of the manufacture have answered 
for such a proceeding? After the arms and 
accoutrements had repeatedly been found ser- 
viceable, resort would certainly have been had to 
compulsory measures, to force the workshops to 
deliver better articles. The truth of the matter can 
only be this, that the Jews found ways and means 
of procuring and secreting arms, which with their 
extensive trade, and that too with people not under 
the Roman sway, could not have been very difficult 
of accomplishment, especially if the whole nation 
were of one accord. 

They kept themselves quiet notwithstanding, as 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 85 

long as the Emperor remained in the East. lie 
had spent the year A. D. 130 in Egypt. The fol- 
lowing year he had travelled to Syria, and thence 
had proceeded to the western provinces ; to which 
of them is not known. We first meet with him in 
A. D. 135, in Athens. The rebellion, however, 
broke out shortly after his departure from the East, 
as soon as he was considered far enough off, in the 
year of Rome 885, and 132 of the Christian era. 

For the direction of a conspiracy so widely 
spread, and so accurately organized, and at the 
same time so profoundly secret, and so exceedingly 
active, a leader was indispensably requisite. And 
now it was that such a one made his appearance. 
How long he may have been already busy in secret, 
rests upon conjecture. The war, however, is so 
remarkable, as to make it incumbent on us to col- 
lect all the remaining accounts concerning him 
which are at all worthy of credit. 

BAR-COCHBA. 

XIII. This leader of the Jews is known to us 
by the name of Bar-cochba. He has remained 
unknown to the Roman historians. But the Chris- 



86 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

tian authors, Eusebius, Jerome, and Orosius, make 
mention of him ; and in the Jewish writers many- 
scattered notices respecting him are preserved ; 
which, however, are to be used with caution, as 
they are partly at variance with history and chro- 
nology, and in part are evidently fabulous. We 
shall therefore pay attention only to those writers 
from whom something may with probability be 
obtained for the elucidation of history ; while of 
the others we shall give here and there a few 
specimens sufficient to show their inadmissibility. 
Titus had already permitted the Jews, after the des- 
struction of their capital, to transfer their great 
Sanhedrim to Samaria. It was placed under the 
patriarch who was head of the Academy at Tibe- 
rias, and who, as well as the Babylonian patri- 
arch, is said to have been of the tribe of Judah. 
His power extended over religious matters, and 
perhaps to deciding as arbitrator in civil disputes, 
when these were brought before him. But he can 
hardly have had the power of life and death, 
although he may have occasionally arrogated it to 
himself. He was always, notwithstanding the title 
of " Prince," which he bore, subject to the Roman 
authorities, and it will easily be perceived that this 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 87 

could not have been otherwise. Still his preroga- 
tives may have augmented by degrees, and may not 
have been as great at first as they afterwards 
became, when an important rank w T as likewise con- 
ferred upon him in the Roman empire. This w T as 
all done publicly. But the book " Zemach David " 
represents the matter as if the Jews, soon after the 
destruction of Jerusalem, and in spite of their vic- 
tor, had made for themselves a sort of civil constitu- 
tion. It assumes, that as early as under Domitian, 
Bar-cochba commenced his reign, and also died 
under him ; and that this Bar-cochba was succeeded 
by his own son. The possibility of the thing, in 
itself considered, cannot be denied, if w T e take into 
account the spirit that animated the Jews ; and 
with this might be connected the inquiries set on 
foot by Domitian after the family of David. But 
in case we could, with difficulty, make out the 
twenty-one years which this statement attributes 
to the dynasty of Bar-cochba, they would already 
have elapsed at the commencement of Hadrian's 
reign ; and this cannot by any means be recon- 
ciled w r ith history. Accordingly we cannot place 
the period at w T hich Bar-cochba appeared earlier 
than toward the end of the reign of Trajan ; and 



88 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

will endeavor to make use of the account of his 
dynasty in the course of this narrative. 

The number of adherents that he found, and the 
power that he exercised, render it very probable 
that he elevated himself by degrees. As King of 
Israel he had certainly nothing more to do than to 
imitate Eunus, the prince of the Sicilian slaves, and 
to spit fire out of his mouth from tow secretly 
lighted, in order to obtain for himself the admira- 
tion and reverence of the common people. . This 
trick can only have prepared the way for him ; his 
own talents must have helped him further on. He 
showed off no miracles before the learned; this 
he had no need to do ; for, animated by national 
enthusiasm, they only sought a man who was able 
to lead them against the Romans. 

Who he was, and what was his origin, is 
entirely unknown. If he gave himself out for the 
Messiah, he must have traced his pedigree back to 
David. But this is not fully proved. The name 
Bar-cochba, Son of the Star, under which he is 
known to history, was given him because either he 
or his adherents maintained that through him was 
fulfilled Balaam's prophecy (Numb. 24: 17) con- 
cerning the star that should rise out of Jacob. It 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 89 

was not until his death, and the depressed condition 
of the Jews had proved how little he answered the 
great expectations formed of him, that he was 
called Bar-coziba, Son of a Lie. But whether he 
was the same whom Dion Cassius calls Andreas^ 
and Eusebius, Lucuas, as Samuel Petit and Rei- 
marus conjecture, we must leave undecided. 

These assume two Bar-cochbas, the first under 
Trajan, the second under Hadrian: a hypothesis 
that stands in connection with the Rabbinical story 
of the dynasty of three successive princes. But if 
the account in the Arabic text of Abulpharagius be 
well founded, Lucuas had perished already in the 
war with Martius Turbo. 

The Rabbins also, who ascribe to him the devas- 
tations in Cyrene, Egypt, and Cyprus, fix his epoch 
under Trajan. This we must leave undetermined. 

The Jews flocked to him in multitudes, and 
anointed and crowned him King in the stronghold 
Bether ; for that he had his seat in Jerusalem, is 
not known to the Jewish writers. That he gave 
himself out for the Messiah, is not completely 
proved, as has been already remarked. There are 
indeed stories to the effect that he could not sup- 
port the proof to which he was put, as to whether 



90 ARGUMENT DERIVED. 

he, as was required of the Messiah according to an 
interpretation of the saying in Isaiah 11 : 3, could 
distinguish the just from the unjust by the smell ; 
and that Rabbi Akiba said of him, " This is the 
King Messiah." Maimonides, however, calls him 
merely the great King. Meanwhile whether he 
gave himself out for the Messiah, or not, he was 
regarded as such by the populace ; for the Messiah 
alone could be their deliverer from the Roman 
yoke. He, however, was not expected to come from 
the nobility, but out of their own midst. Indeed 
according to his contemporary Trypho, whose dia- 
logue with Justin Martyr we still possess, the Mes- 
siah was to be unknown when born, and should not 
even know himself or possess any power, until Elias 
should come to anoint him. But this Elias was 
most probably found in the person of Rabbi Akiba, 
although we do not know that it was he who 
anointed him in Bether. 

XIV. Akiba, who had not sprung from an Isra- 
elitish stock, but had gone over to Judaism of his 
own free choice, had become the most zealous and 
learned of the Rabbins, and glowed with the same 
hatred that fired all Israel against the Romans. He 
deduced his pedigree from Sisera, the general of 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 91 

the Tyrian king Jabin, whom Deborah slew ; but 
his mother was a Jewess. His whole history is 
mythic, and copied after that of Moses. Forty 
years lie was an untaught shepherd ; he then sued 
for the hand of his master's daughter, who, how- 
ever, would marry none but a learned man. For 
four and twenty, or (according to others) forty 
years, he pursued his studies, and is said to have 
travelled much. He then began to teach, and 
served the people forty years long as superintendent 
of the schools, first at Lydda and then at Samaria. 
The number of his pupils was reckoned at 24,000. 
What God did not intrust to Moses, he is said to 
have revealed to him ; and hence he is regarded as 
the teacher of the unwritten law. The Mishna 
began with his collection ; and the book Jezirah, 
attributed to Abraham, but which is now lost, was 
one of the works in which he deposited his wis- 
dom. No wonder, therefore, that they even sought 
for him in the Old Testament. The words of 
Moses, Ex. 4 : 13, " Lord, send whom thou wilt 
send," were applied to him. The passage in Job 
28 : 10, " His eye seeth every precious thing," was 
understood of him ; and when at last he was exe- 
cuted by the Romans, some even referred to his 



92 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

death the celebrated passage in the 52nd and 53rd 
chapters of Isaiah. He had seen the temple while 
yet in its splendor, and was so much the more eager 
for its restoration. The exalted dignity with which 
he was invested as associate of the patriarch, must 
have considerably augmented the great influence he 
already possessed, and at the same time it furnishes 
us with a plain indication that the patriarch in 
Palestine, Gamaliel, and the entire Sanhedrim, had 
an understanding with Bar-cochba; which also 
appears evident from the Jewish traditions of Bar- 
cochba' s transactions with the wise men. 

Akiba not only declared Bar-cochba to be King 
Messiah, with which the latter, even if he did not 
give himself out as such, was very well pleased, 
but he was also his most trusty counsellor, accom- 
panying him every where, and on festival occasions 
assumed the office of his armor-bearer, by carrying 
before him his sword, the symbol of his dignity. 
That the old man of nearly six-score years could 
not have attended him in battle may easily be con- 
jectured. 

Bar-cochba seems also to have had a counsellor 
and assistant in Rabbi Tarphon, the successor of 
Akiba in the superintendence of the school at 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 93 

Lydda. This name at least occurs in the history of 
this prince. Several other celebrated Rabbins, who 
took an active part in the war, and perished in it, 
will be mentioned in the sequel. 

XV. Bar-cochba had at first the most complete 
success. In Palestine all the Jews united with him, 
and probably also the Samaritans, who at least are 
never mentioned as his enemies ; this army must 
have been very considerable, although the state- 
ments of the Rabbins, who give it at 200,000 men, 
may be exaggerated ; and he pushed forward his 
army beyond the borders of the country into Syria. 
After the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus, many 
Jews had fled to the Galilean cities, Sephoris and 
Tiberias ; the descendants of these now fell upon 
the Pagan and Christian inhabitants, and commit- 
ted great slaughter among them. After the war 
was concluded, and these cities once more set free, 
they testified their gratitude to the Emperor in 
a remarkable manner. The former took a new 
name, Diocsesarea Adriana, and the latter erected 
a temple which they called Adrianum. 

Bar-cochba at first endeavored to draw the 
Christians of Palestine over to his side. But una- 
ble to prevail upon them to renounce their faith, 



94 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

and to participate in the insurrection against the 
Romans, whom he treated with great barbarity, he 
speedily turned his rage against the Christians also 
in the most dreadful manner ; as is testified by 
Justin Martyr, Eusebius, and Orosius. 

!No long time had elapsed, when he became mas- 
ter of Jerusalem. It is true that all writers are 
silent as to this circumstance ; but the many testi- 
monies to its recapture under Hadrian, place beyond 
all doubt the fact that the Jews had possession of 
the Holy City. It was probably the colony sent 
thither by the Roman Emperor that was driven 
out. A few incidents have been preserved, which 
appear to belong to this period. 

The surrounding region was dreadfully deso- 
lated. Wolves and hyenas made inroads on the city 
itself. R. Akiba, therefore, according to the inter- 
pretation given by Samuel Petit to a passage in 
Aben Ezra, caused the celebration of the Passover 
to be transferred from Mount Nisan to Mount Ijor. 
This seems to have reference to the journeys usu- 
ally undertaken at the time of the festival ; for it 
is certain that every one might keep the feast of 
Easter in his own house, even though there should 
be no hindrance — such as continual rain-storms, 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 95 

Swollen streams, roads and bridges destroyed, — to 
render the journey to Jerusalem difficult. But fes- 
tival-journeys presuppose that Jews were living in 
Jerusalem, and that divine worship was at least in 
some measure restored. Again, Dion relates that 
about this time Solomon's sepulchre tumbled down 
of itself — a prodigy that, considering the great 
antiquity of David's family burying-place, was very 
natural, but which he regarded as a bad omen. He 
mentions, indeed, that this happened before the 
breaking out of the war. But could the falling 
down of the old royal tomb presage any disaster to 
the Romans ? It is probable, therefore, that the 
explanation did not occur till after the close of the 
war, and that Dion erred with regard to the time, 
and placed the event in a somewhat earlier period 
than that in which it actually took place. The 
Jews in Jerusalem might certainly, according to 
their way of thinking, have had reason to be terri- 
fied when they saw the tomb of David and Solo- 
mon, whose kingdom they were then about to 
restore, fall down without any visible cause. 

XVI. To these proofs are to be added those 
furnished by numismatists. We know from both 
the Talmuds that coins were struck bv Bar-cochba. 



96 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

That of Jerusalem says expressly, "Samaritan 
money, as for instance that of Bar-coziba, does not 
defile," and that of Babylon mentions the coins 
themselves. Of these some have descended to our 
times. These are, namely, four silver coins ; three 
of which belong undeniably to the Emperor Trajan, 
while the fourth is somewhat doubtful. On these 
the Roman impress can still be partially discerned, 
although they are stamped over again with a Samar- 
itan inscription. It is known that such recoining 
was practised in ancient as well as in modern times. 
This restamping of money, however, points infalli- 
bly to a war in which the Jews wished to have a 
coinage of their own. The name " Simon," which 
we find on two of them, is the name of the prince, 
and who can this have been but Bar-cochba ? It is 
true, we nowhere read that he was called Simon ; 
but from this silence there is nothing to be inferred. 
Upon the examination of various coins and 
deductions from them by various writers, the fol- 
lowing results are reached : — (1) That in the first 
outbreak of the insurrection, before the new Jewish 
government was organized, it was the practice 
to recoin money of the Roman currency. How 
long this may have lasted, cannot be determined. 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 97 

(2) That Bar-cochba, however, as soon as he was 
able, coined his own money. Th*e rich contributions 
of the Jews, that flowed to him from all quarters 
(for the Jews of Palestine were too poor to afford 
him much aid in this respect), procured him the req- 
uisite metal. This enabled him to strike coins of 
many kinds. (3) That the mint was at first, in the 
first two years, at Jerusalem, is at least very prob- 
able from the inscriptions — " To the freedom of 
Jerusalem," and "Jerusalem the holy," which 
alternate with the legends — " To the freedom or 
redemption of Zion," or "Israel." (4) That Bar- 
cochba either was called Simon, or that he assumed 
this name in memory of Simon Maccabeus, the 
deliverer of the Israelites from Syrian bondage, in 
token that he would deliver his people in like man- 
ner from that of the Romans ; but that this name 
fell into oblivion because the people preferred to 
call him " the Son of the Star," which according to 
the prophecy had risen over Israel, although they 
afterward gave him the nickname of Bar-coziba. 

It was probably one of his first concerns, when 
he saw himself in possession of Jerusalem, to 
restore the temple, of which at least the foundation 

walls and subterranean vaults were still in exist- 
1 



98 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

ence ; in addition to which an immense mass of 
building materials must have been found under the 
ruins. This is so much the more certain since 
Chrysostom, the Chronicon Alexandrinum, etc., give 
accounts of it. Here, too, appears to belong a coin 
on which is seen a portico with four pillars ; in the 
middle hangs a lyre, a serpentine line runs beneath. 
Who does not here call to mind the brook Kedron ? 
On the other side stands a manna pot, and a leaf 
or a small fruit : the inscription is, " Simeon, prince 
of Jerusalem." The year, however, is wanting. 

We may regard it then as fully proved that Bar- 
cochba had possession of Jerusalem, although the 
Jewish writers, the Samaritan Book of Joshua alone 
excepted, are entirely silent on the subject, and 
speak only of Bether. Was it perhaps too painful 
to their feelings to speak of a third destruction of 
their capital ? An occurrence so remarkable and 
affecting them so nearly, they can certainly never 
have forgotten. Or did they purposely exchange 
the name Jerusalem for Bether ? But then it is 
just as true that Bether likewise was captured. 

How long Bar-cochba was master of Jerusalem, 
cannot be determined. From the fact that the coins 
of the two first years alone bear the inscriptions 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAE. 99 

above named, we can only draw the conjecture that 
his possession of the city may have lasted no longer 
than these first two years. It is true that the coins 
of the third and fourth years also mention Zion and 
Israel ; but then by Zion may be meant the nation 
itself, which always, even after it had lost Jerusa- 
lem, continued to hope for the recovery of its free- 
dom. 

XYII. At first, the Romans despised the insur- 
rection. Tet they must soon have found that they 
had to do not with single mobs, but with the entire 
Jewish people. Not only was all Palestine in 
motion, but the spirit of disturbance spread in every 
direction where Jews were to be found in the 
Roman Empire, and broke out in covert or open 
attacks on the Romans, and the support that Bar- 
cochba received, proves of itself how deeply the 
nation was involved in his undertaking. Almost 
the whole world, says Dion, was set in motion by 
the revolt of the Jews. Lucius Quietus was at a 
distance ; and as Hadrian supposed that all was in 
perfect tranquillity, there were probably but few 
cohorts in the country. The insurrection accord- 
ingly proceeded so much the more quietly. The 
governor of Palestine, T. Rufus, could effect noth- 



100 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

ing. The Romans were everywhere exposed to 
the attacks of the Jews ; who, while they avoided 
coming to the decision of a battle, were exceedingly 
formidable in slight skirmishes, and could easily 
retire to the mountains. The revolt assumed a very 
serious character. At length the eyes of Hadrian 
were opened. He found that none of his generals 
in the east were capable of managing the affair. 
Fifty places fortified either previously or by them- 
selves, and nine hundred and eighty-five open 
towns and villages, were in the possession of the 
Jews. They must therefore have spread themselves 
far beyond the bounds of Palestine proper, into 
Syria, and perhaps into Phenicia ; and must also 
have obtained possession of the sea coast, which ren- 
dered it much easier for them to procure supplies. 
And now came the capture of Jerusalem, or of Elia, 
if the revolted city was already so called. Hadrian 
at length summoned from the extreme west the 
governor of Britain, Julius Severus, the greatest 
general of his time. Auxiliaries came from the 
remotest regions. The struggle was protracted and 
dangerous. As late as under Hadrian's grandsons, 
Marcus Aurelius and Verus, Fronto speaks of it, 
and places this struggle on a parallel with the Par- 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 101 

thian and British wars. The Jews were very 
numerous, and fought with the courage of despair. 
Necessity developed talent. Perhaps, too, they 
obtained leaders from the kingdom of Parthia. 
Julius Severus attacked single bodies of troops, and 
cut off their supplies, doubtless by taking possession 
of the roads and passes ; for Palestine, thinly popu- 
lated as it was, could by no means furnish support to 
two hostile armies, and yet the Jews were able to 
keep up the war for four years. Consequently in 
order to carry it on so long, they must have been 
able to obtain assistance and supplies by ways which 
the Romans could not for a long time block up. 
We are made acquainted in the history of the first 
Jewish war with the glens and mountain caves that 
rendered the subjugation of Palestine so difficult to 
the Romans. These, and the subterranean passages 
intersecting each other, which possessed many out- 
lets, and obtained air as well as light through open- 
ings from above, they now made use of, partly as 
hiding-places from which they made attacks on the 
Romans, and partly as strongholds to protect them- 
selves ; and when it was necessary, they threw up 
walls in addition for their better defence. Caves 
and subterranean passages of this kind are still to 



102 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

be seen in the desolated portions of Palestine ; and 
the writers of travels speak of them with wonder. 

XVIII. Two years appear to have been passed 
by the Romans in clearing the region about Jeru- 
salem before they could think of besieging the city. 
Its capture, however, does not admit of a doubt, 
though the Rabbins are silent in respect to it. So 
was Josephus in respect to Christ. It is testified 
by Appian and by many other authorities. The 
age which was now passing, however, was one in 
which so little that was done was made matter of 
record, that they who were unfriendly to an event 
thought it the most sure method of consigning to 
oblivion whatever they wished to be unknown, to 
neglect to record it. This view, of course, takes for 
granted the spuriousness of that passage in Jose- 
phus in which he is made to bear testimony to the 
person and character of Christ. A far more popu- 
lar method with the historians of that age, espe- 
cially among the Jews, was to represent things as 
they wished to have them, and in the most extrav- 
agant manner possible — a practice from which the 
historian just named cannot be regarded as free. 
Jerusalem was therefore demolished ; and that the 
Jews might know that they were never to rebuild 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 103 

it, tlie plough-share was pushed over the founda- 
tions of the Temple. 

Of Bar-cochba's fate we have no positive knowl- 
edge. One event only is recorded of him — that he 
caused one Rabbi Tryphon to be put to death 
because he counselled a surrender. This, however, 
cannot be the Tryphon with whom Justin held his 
well-known dialogue, for it is known that he sur- 
vived the war, being mentioned in the dialogue 
relating to the close of the war. Of the death of 
the above-named E. Tryphon, nothing is related 
by the Rabbins, though they often make mention 
of him. 

The Talmud assigns to the reign of Bar- 
cochba the mysterious number so frequently met 
with in the Scriptures — "three years and a half" 
(of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter). 
Notwithstanding the mortification of the Jews, they 
have made Hadrian to say, on receiving intelli- 
gence of this man's death — " had this man not been 
killed by his God, no one would have been able to 
do him harm." 

Jerusalem fell for the last time from the keep- 
ing of the Jews A. D. 119, or forty -nine years after 
its demolition by Titus Yespasian, and only eighty 



104: ARGUMENT DERIVED 

years after the declaration of our Lord, recorded by 
all the Evangelists — " Yerily I say unto you that 
this generation shall not pass away till all these 
things be fulfilled." Others have made the date of 
its destruction twelve or fifteen years later, which 
does not in any measure affect the meaning of our 
Lord's declaration above, which seems to be only 
another method of saying — " The man is born who 
is to witness the final and complete overthrow of 
the Jewish state and nation." 

XIX. As we have seen, Jerusalem was now 
taken ; but there was still a stronghold in the hands 
of the Jews, into which a strong force must have 
previously thrown themselves ; since we cannot 
suppose that, on the surrender of Jerusalem, the 
Roman army granted a free retreat thither to a 
great body of fugitives. But, doubtless, all that 
could would naturally make their way to the strong- 
hold Bether. Such, according to Eusebius, was the 
name of this fortress, situated near Jerusalem. Its 
site is not fully determined, nor will it be, till, at 
some future time a more exact investigation of its 
ruins shall brino; it to lio;ht. We have no knowl- 
edge of its location further than that which is given 
us by the historian last named, who places it in the 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 105 

vicinity of Jerusalem, and describes it as very- 
strong. And it must have been of great extent, as 
a great multitude of people found protection in it. 
Probably also it was situated on a hill, as it held 
out a long time against a siege. According to the 
Rabbins, it was an immense city, having four or 
five hundred synagogues, and other things equal. 
This is probably an exaggeration. 

At last the besieged were subdued by hunger 
and thirst, as well as by the attacks of the Romans. 
The city was captured with great bloodshed towards 
the end of the 18th year of Hadrian's reign, in the 
year of Rome 888, and of our Lord 135. Jewish 
authors relate that the horses had to wade up to 
their mouths in blood. Who does not recall the 
terrible declaration in the Apocalypse — " blood up 
to the horses' bridles " ? It is further stated by these 
same authors that the blood of the men w-ho fell 
rolled along in its current stones of four pounds 
weight ; that the corpses of the slain did not 
undergo putrefaction, and that Hadrian caused his 
vineyard, which was 15 Roman miles square, to be 
fenced in with them. 

The terrible character of this war may be appre- 
hended from the fact that 50 strongholds, and 985 



106 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

towns and villages fell into the hands of the 
Romans ; their inhabitants were either given to the 
sword, or driven into slavery never to be redeemed. 
This must have required a long interval. The clos- 
ing scene of the war appears to have lasted three 
and a half years. In this Jerome and the Tal- 
mud coincide. 

XX. It is a most singular fact, how T ever, that 
neither in the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, 
nor in this last and most fatal war of the Jews, was 
there any slaughter of the Christians. All history is 
positive on this point ; whether the writer knew 
anything or not, of the assurances given by our 
Lord that he would send forth his angels and they 
would gather his elect from every quarter where 
they could be found, if he noticed the Christians 
that were found among the Jews (and there w T ere 
undoubtedly thousands, as is intimated in the 
Apocalypse, in the sealing of the 144 thousand) he 
always distinctly notices their timely withdrawal 
from the place of strife, and safe arrival in places 
where the sword could not devour. 

Perhaps it will not be entirely out of place here 
to suggest that this was undoubtedly a specific and 
special arrangement of God our Saviour, whereby 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 107 

he signified to the world the scenes of his coming 
at the last great day. Then, as at the period we 
are contemplating, " he shall separate the righteous 
from the wicked, as a shepherd divideth his sheep 
from the goats ; and these, the goats (representing 
the sinner), shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment, but the righteous into life eternal." 

XXI. We return to our narrative. Many of 
the Rabbins perished at the taking of Bether, some 
for one cause, and some for another ; but the num- 
ber of these, as of every class, was so great as to 
defy specification. Of the Jews that perished in 
those fearful battles, Dion Cassius says there were 
580,000, while those who perished by hunger, 
pestilence, and the miseries of war, could not be 
calculated. Jewish accounts give the number 
that Hadrian killed at four millions. In Alexandria 
he is said to have destroyed twice as many as came 
out of Egypt under Moses, viz., six millions. This 
amount is evidently an exaggeration. But the 
number of the Romans that suffered in this war 
may easily have amounted to over two millions. 

XXII. At length the Jews were reduced to 
complete subjection. Palestine had also become a 
desert. Prisoners were sold for slaves in countless 



108 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

multitudes. The slave market at the Terebinth 
tree (as Jerome says) near Hebron, where Abra- 
ham had dwelt, was glutted, so that multitudes 
were shipped to Egypt, of whom many perished 
by the way, with hunger, fatigue or shipwreck, 
while thousands were murdered by the heathen. 

Thus was this unhappy people severely pun- 
ished for their bold, renewed, but indiscreet attempt 
to recover their freedom. No wonder that even 
in the following centuries they continued to mourn 
over the capture of Bether, as they had over 
that of Jerusalem by Titus, and that in their la- 
mentations Hadrian and Nebuchadnezzar are men- 
tioned with equal abhorrence. Titus, on the con- 
trary, was far from being detested by the Jews in 
a like degree. Appian relates that the Emperor 
Hadrian imposed on the Jews a poll tax which 
must be distinguished from that to Jupiter Capi- 
tolinus. But this may have served as a partial in- 
demnification for the expenses of the war. 

XXIII. It was now (A. D. 136) that Jerusa- 
lem, no longer a Jewish but a Roman city, received 
the new name of Colonia 2Elia Cajpitolina — JElia 
after the first name of its founder iElius Hadrianus, 
and Capitolina in honor of the god to whom it was 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 109 

now dedicated, and whose temple was built on the 
site where that of the Jews had formerly stood. 
This was indeed u the abomination of desolation " 
spoken of by Daniel, standing where it ought not. 
Thus, too, a temple to Jupiter in the ancient Sichem 
occupied the place of the Samaritan sanctuary on 
Mount Gerizim, although perhaps at a somewhat 
later period. Hadrian adorned his colony with 
magnificent buildings, among the rest a theatre, 
out of the ruins of the Temple and of other great 
works. 

XXIV. JElia Capitolina, however, did not at- 
tain to the former Jerusalem. Mount Zion, which 
now lay in ruins, and was used for gardens and till- 
age, was not included within the walls. That the 
city was enlarged on the west, and that Calvary 
among other places was brought within its circuit, 
is a fable of later date. Hadrian's iElia is the Jeru- 
salem of the Crusaders and of the Turks ; and its 
limits have been assigned by nature herself. The 
name ^£lia was retained long after in the Christian 
ages, together with the ancient one ; which last was 
applied again to the city from Constantine's time 
onwards, and gradually supplanted the other. 

Over the gate that led to Bethlehem, Hadrian 



110 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

caused a swine to be sculptured in relief on the wall ; 
perhaps with the view of rendering the new city 
still more odious to the Jews ; since their refrain- 
ing from the flesh of that animal was a subject of 
derision among the Romans. The swine, however, 
belongs also to the signa militaria of the Roman 
army, and was the fifth in rank, in honor of the sow 
that JEneas found at the place where Lavinium 
was to be built. We see it on one of Hadrian's 
coins. 

It was an object of importance with the Em- 
peror to attract a large number of inhabitants to his 
new city. Accordingly, he provided also for their 
religious worship. That great honor was shown to 
Jupiter Capitolinus, is a matter of course. He was 
indeed regarded as the guardian deity of the city. 
His temple, on the site where that of Solomon 
formerly stood, is mentioned by Dion Cassius. 
Jerome also speaks of a statue of Jupiter at the 
place of the resurrection. But the sepulchre of 
Christ must certainly have been destroyed in the 
siege under Titus. Golgotha also, according to 
Sozomon, was surrounded by the Pagans with a 
wall, and filled up with stones, and on it placed a 
temple of Yenus, whose image in marble is men- 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. Ill 

tioned by Jerome. This was probably an Astarte, 
for the Phenicians ; and if there stood also in this 
temple, as Paulinus of Nola reports, an image of 
Jupiter, it was doubtless a Phenician Baal, who 
indeed was not unfrequently adored as the solar 
Deity in the same temple with the queen of heaven 
(Astarte). A temple to Serapis seems to have been 
erected by Hadrian for the Egyptians. But, except- 
ing the adoration of Jupiter, the Phenician wor- 
ship must have been the predominating one in the 
city and in the country round about ; and hence it 
was that the cave in Bethlehem, in which, accord- 
ing to tradition, Christ was born, was dedicated to 
Adonis ; yet Hadrian can hardly have conceived 
the idea of a dying God, and have represented to 
himself Adonis as a mystical being having any 
reference to Christ. He was, moreover, no enemy 
or persecutor of the Christians. Had he not pos- 
sessed the conviction that the Jews and Christians 
differed essentially from each other, he would have 
prohibited the Christians as strictly as the Jews 
from approaching Jerusalem. This, however, was 
not done ; and he seems even to have observed with 
satisfaction that the Nazarene community, who had 
retired to Pella in the time of Yespasian, now 



112 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

took up their abode in his new city, together with 
the Romans and the Phenicians. 

XXV. The rigorous treatment to which the 
Jews were subjected by their Roman masters was 
not a little embittered by the fact, that while they 
themselves were excluded from the Jerusalem that 
remained, the Christians, even those who had once 
fled from it, were permitted to return and to dwell 
in safety. Hadrian forbade them access to it under 
pain of death. This is testified to by Justin Mar- 
tyr, Aristo of Pella in Eusebius, Tertullian, Euse- 
bius himself, and Jerome. The prohibition was 
still in force in Tertullian's time, in the beginning 
of the third century. Nay, the unhappy people 
dared not even to venture into the neighborhood of 
Jerusalem, not even to look upon and lament over 
the ruins of their sanctuary from a distance. Guards, 
too, were stationed to prevent their entering. Such 
strong measures were of course intended to last only 
for a while. But they were certainly renewed, and 
perhaps increased in severity, as often as the Jews 
gave new cause for suspicion, or raised new disturb- 
ances. In the age of Constantine, however, the 
Jews received permission to approach the city 
within a certain distance, so that they could see it 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 113 

from the surrounding mountains. But none ven- 
tured to enter it, or take up his abode there. At 
length they were allowed to come to Jerusalem 
once a year, on the anniversary of the day when 
Titus took the city, and to weep over the ruins of 
the Temple. Men and women, often feeble and 
aged persons, flocked there together in rent garments 
of mourning, and were forced to purchase permis- 
sion from the Roman guards to weep undisturbed. 
At a later period, when the Jews were more equit- 
ably treated, they obtained leave, either expressed 
or understood, to reside in Jerusalem. Twice, how- 
ever, they were driven forth by Constantine and by 
Heraclius ; and it was not until under the domin- 
ion of the Saracens, to whom the city was no less 
holy, that its gates were again opened to the pos- 
terity of its former inhabitants. 

XX YI. But with the taking of Bether all dis- 
turbances among the Jews do not yet appear to 
have been suppressed. A few words of Capitolinus 
allude to a new attempt in the first years of the 
reign of Antoninus Pius. By means of his govern- 
ors and lieutenants, says this biographer, he quelled 
the rebellious Jews. He also states that disturb- 
ances had broken out in several provinces ; for in* 
1 



114 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

stance also in Achaia and Egypt. At the solicitation 
of the Jews, Antonine had softened the rigor of 
Hadrian's laws, and permitted the circumcision of 
their children ; but he forbade them to incorporate 
strangers in this way among their own people. 
Their Sanhedrim had been established anew, and 
history names several of their patriarchs who lived 
under Antonine and his successors. 

Marcus Aurelius and Verus also at first gave 
them proofs of favor, and according to Ulpian again 
granted them access to posts of honor. But when 
a new Parthian war broke out, the Jews living in 
the East, and hence probably those in Mesopotamia 
under Parthian rule, united themselves to the 
hereditary enemies of the Roman Empire, and with 
them became again subject to the hated yoke of 
the Romans. The Emperor, on his journey through 
Syria to Egypt, renewed Hadrian's laws against 
them; though in the remote oriental provinces 
they were never enforced. 

In the early part of the reign of Severus 
nothing was heard of them. They appear not to 
have been involved in the war with Severus. 
We have an account that Severus, in his journey 
through Palestine, prohibited an accession to Juda- 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 115 

ism under severe penalties. Consequently the 
Jews must have gone on making proselytes, in 
spite of all former laws. The same prohibition 
w r as issued, by command of the Emperor, respecting 
the Christians, and thus he gave rise to a persecu- 
tion which was particularly vehement in Alexan- 
dria and in Africa, and destroyed many martyrs, 
among others, Leonidas, the father of Origen, and 
somewhat later, Felicitas and Perpetua. In the 
sequel Severus became again more favorable to the 
Jews. Their money opened his heart to them; 
but at the same time he did not spare their purses, 
and they were obliged afterwards, as before, to pay 
the taxes imposed on them. They were, however, 
regarded as Roman citizens, were capable of hold- 
ing office, and of being employed in public busi- 
ness ; and possessed even the right of declining 
such offices as were attended with too great ex- 
pense, e. g. municipal magistracies. They conse- 
quently felt deep gratitude to the Emperor ; and 
applied to him, as they had previously done to 
Marcus Aurelius, the words of Scripture : " now 
when they fall, they shall be holpen with a little 
help." 



116 ARGUMENT DERIVED 



PART III. 



Here then we have a history, fragmentary we 
admit, which throws a world of light on an ut- 
terly dark and hitherto inexplicable period in the 
existence of the Jews. At their disappearance 
from the theatre of the world, their numbers, as we 
have seen, were sufficient to enable them to rank 
high among the nations of the earth. Their power 
as a warlike people was not to be despised; their 
knowledge in arts and science was fully equal to 
their standing in other respects ; and the influence 
of their religion was felt wherever they were known. 

It is scarcely to be supposed, therefore, that 
such a nation should make its exit from the world 
without leaving some memorial of its greatness, 
which neither time nor accident could erase. The 
wonder is that there should be so little left of 
them as there evidently is, or as we have found. 
But we are to remember that the world was leag- 
ued against them. Men, that differed on every 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WA.R. 117 

other subject, agreed in this, their hatred of the 
Jews. In fact that feeling has not yet faded from 
the world. 

Let us now refer to the latter part of the his- 
tory which has been quoted — to the reign of Ha- 
drian — the man ordained of God to lay the heav- 
iest stripes upon God's unbelieving and wicked 
people. "With a view to secure the favor of the 
nation, and make them satisfied with their condi- 
tion, he rebuilds the temple which had been again 
demolished, but does not restore the worship which 
the Jews had been accustomed to witness there. 
He proposes to rebuild the whole city, but it must 
be a Pagan city, and its temple must have nothing 
of Christ in it, or any thing else which would 
serve to revive in the mind of the worshipper the 
memory of those days when the true God was 
worshipped there. 

He begins by disarming the whole people. 
They cannot of course misunderstand that, and ac- 
cordingly arrange their affairs to meet the gather- 
ing storm. Those employed by the Emperor to 
fabricate weapons of war, which, as they well knew, 
were to be employed against themselves, wrought 
in every way to deceive, and to make their masters 



118 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

believe they were honest and upright in their inten- 
tions, while they were taking the most direct meas- 
ures to provide for their own safety and defence. 

The Jews, as a nation, though scattered over 
almost the known world, are now ready for a gen- 
eral revolt. It is to be the last act in the national 
drama. "The abomination that maketh desolate 
had long since been set up," i. e. " standing in the 
holy place " ; " men's hearts began to fail them for 
fear, and for looking at the evils which were gath- 
ering over the pathway of the nation" once so 
highly favored of Heaven. 

The Jews lack only a leader — a man to head 
the lost cause. Such a one is soon found in the 
person of Bar-cochba — " the Son of a Star" He 
thus designates himself in order to satisfy the Jews 
that he is "the star" which Balaam saw in the 
dim distant future, " which was to arise in Jacob," 
and utterly overwhelm the tents of his enemies. 
Bar-cochba succeeded in inspiring the Jews with 
unlimited confidence in him as the Heaven-ap- 
pointed leader and Saviour of his people : a confi- 
dence, however, which was destined to be cruelly 
betrayed. Those "wars and rumors of wars" 
which were foretold by the Saviour, and which 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 119 

were to be regarded as indisputable tokens of the 
final catastrophe, began to rage in all the regions 
to which the Jews had fled. Desolation every 
where appears ; earth itself rocks with the moun- 
tainous evils that are falling upon that generation. 
Stars fall from heaven ; i. e. the lesser lights in 
the church are seen departing from it, and leaving 
it a prey to its enemies. This revolt is so far 
.successful that the Jews recover possession of Je- 
rusalem, and at once proceed to re-establish their 
religion and their laws. The insurrection has so 
far spread, and so thoroughly has it penetrated 
the vast multitudes of the Jews, that they have 
recovered fifty strongholds, and regained possession 
of 989 villages and open towns. Bar-cochba is 
every where victorious ; it would almost seem 
that he was clothed with power from heaven ; but 
the end draweth nigh. Hadrian, learning of the 
revolt, and of the slaughter made by the Jews, 
has sent for his victorious general Severus, who 
was at that time employed with the Picts and 
Scots, who flies with the velocity of an arrow to his 
master at Rome, there to receive command from 
him to repair at once to Palestine and put down 
the rebellion, cost what it may, whether of treasure 



120 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

or of blood. " Let him that readeth understand." 
Here is undoubtedly " the he-goat " mentioned in 
Daniel 8:5, " who was seen coming from the 
west, on the face of the whole earth, and touched 
not the ground." This simply denotes the celerity 
with which he came. He smites the ram (Bar- 
cochba), " casting him down to the ground, stamp- 
ing him with the dust, so that none could deliver 
the ram out of his hands." Here is the prophetic, 
account, undoubtedly, of the battle of " Gog and 
Magog" (Rev 20 : 8), which lasted " three years 
and a half," — "forty and two months," — ending 
in the almost utter annihilation of the Jews, and 
fully that of the leader of the insurrection. 

" Bether," as it is called in every place where 
it is recorded, is the last place where the Jews 
made a stand. This is undoubtedly the place 
which is called Armageddon (Rev. 16 : 16), prop- 
erly " Hor-mageddon," or " the mount of slaugh- 
ter." It is written as in the first spelling by the 
Apocalyptist, so that no one but a Jew could un- 
derstand what place was referred to. Bether is 
unquestionably the place, or city, to which the 
Jews fled in such numbers as to render it utterly 
impossible for them to sustain life but a few days 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 121 

at most. They fell an easy prey to Roman rapac- 
ity, and the all-devouring sword. Dion Cassius 
affirms that nearly 600,000 Jews perished here, 
while Jewish historians place the number much 
higher. Probably not less than four millions of 
those unhappy people perished during the strug- 
gle which is said to have lasted " forty and two 
months," or " three years and a half." 

Thus virtually perished the Jewish common- 
wealth ; nothing remained but lacerated fragments, 
which were scattered over the face of the earth, 
never to be gathered again till the final coming of 
Christ, which is to take place when he is to come 
again to raise the dead and judge the world. 

Order reigns in Palestine, but it is the order 
of desolation ; the land enjoys her sabbaths, but 
they are the sabbaths that follow in the train of 
annihilating warfare. Jerusalem is rebuilt by her 
conquerors, but it is the Jerusalem of the bloody 
Saracen and Turk, — with a swine sculptured over 
the gate of Bethlehem, as a memorial of that 
hatred which the unhappy descendants of Abraham 
had incurred, and which is destined to remain till 
they shall acknowledge Him who "bore their 
griefs and carried their sorrows." Hadrian's vie- 



122 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

• torious general can now return to Rome, and re- 
port to his master that he will have no further 
trouble with the Jews. The city for which they 
had fought had perished; its very name was 
almost forgotten. 

"We have occupied too much time, perhaps, in 
recapitulating the incidents of that history which 
we have quoted, but its startling events are of such 
importance to the right understanding of the word 
of God, and to the work we have undertaken, as 
to require no apology ; for it is not to be denied 
that the world for at least fifteen centuries felt the 
need of this light. It is, moreover, not to be cred- 
ited, that the Lord Jesus Christ, having taken 
such care to inform his disciples of the destruction 
of Jerusalem by Titus, would subsequently say 
nothing of another destruction so soon to follow, 
which, in respect to its consequences, should as 
far transcend that, as the destruction of the nation 
transcends that of its chief city. 

But Second Adventism involves this incredible 
position. It supposes that our Lord, in his conver- 
sation with the disciples on the Mount of Olives, 
spoke of one and the same event after Matt. 26 : 28, 
as before* In the next verse he says : " Immedi- 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 123 

ately after the tribulation of those days." What 
days ? Why those of course to which he had just 
been directing their attention — days in which their 
venerated temple should be destroyed. " Imme- 
diately after these the sun shall be darkened, and 
the moon shall not give her light ; the stars shall 
fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven 
shall be shaken." 

Let it not be overlooked that the above pas- 
sage is a quotation from the prophecy of Isaiah 
(13 : 10) — a quotation made by our Lord Jesus 
Christ himself. We think it will not be contended 
by any man, nor even thought, that He whose 
spirit inspired the Scriptures, did not know how to 
apply them, or to what even they referred. Here 
is the prophet Isaiah, under the guidance of the 
Spirit of inspiration describing "the day of the 
Lord." He says it shall be preceded by the dark- 
ened sun, and obscured moon, falling stars, etc., 
and Christ appears to explain that prophecy. He 
informs the disciples, and through them the world 
itself, that those events shall " immediately "follov) 
those to which he had just referred ; to wit, the 
destruction of the temple. Now, what disposal can 
be made of the terms we have been considering, 



124 ARGUMENT DERIVED 

if Christ, in what follows, spoke only of one event 
— the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem by 
Titus ? 

Dr. Robinson felt this difficulty for years. He 
sees no consistency whatever in the supposition we 
have been opposing. Nor would he adopt the 
exegesis of De Wette and of other Universalists, 
viz., that what follows v. 29 refers to the day of 
judgment, and that, by the day of judgment, 
simply and only the destruction of Jerusalem was 
meant. He felt that it was worse than absurd to 
adopt a theory which would make the Judge him- 
self guilty of counselling men, even his own elect, 
as to how they might shun the judgment. " Two 
shall be in the field ; the one shall be taken, and 
the other left." He felt, as every intelligent man 
feels, that loth will go to the judgment, if one 
does. 

Professor Stuart felt the same difficulty. 
Thousands have felt it. Dr Robinson informs us 
how and where he himself obtained light. It was 
in the history we have just quoted, — furnishing 
a rational and consistent account of the manner in 
which the nation of the Jews made their exit from 
among the nations of the earth, and leaving the 



FROM THE SECOND JEWISH WAR. 125 

subject of Christ's coming to judge the world free 
from those difficulties which have been felt in all 
ages of the church ; also harmonizing the statements 
of the Evangelists w T ith the almost universally ac- 
cepted doctrine, that the next personal coming of 
Christ would be to raise the dead and judge the 
world. It is not strange, therefore, that Dr. Rob- 
inson embraced this view, and with great diligence 
labored to set forth the theory which it sustains 
as alone satisfactory. And the writer of this vol- 
ume, without a single misgiving, adopts the same. 
He has no manner of doubt that the Lord Jesus, 
after answering the inquiries of the disciples, so far 
as it was proper for him to do, in respect to the 
first catastrophe, moves directly forward to make 
known another, and a more formidable event, 
which was to be announced by certain signs " im- 
mediately after the tribulations of those days," to 
which he at first referred ; and that he fixed with 
sufficient distinctness the time beyond which his 
enemies, the unbelieving Jews, need not dream of 
deliverance. 

The Bible argument is, of course, our great 
reliance. Accordingly I propose to close the argu- 
ment in this part of the discussion, by introduc- 



126 EXEGESIS or matt. 24: 29-31. 

ing the testimony of the Bible, as it is given us 
by the Evangelists themselves. And here I take 
the liberty of presenting this scriptural argument 
in the words of that close thinker and logical rea- 
soner, Dr Edward Robinson, to whom I have so 
often alluded. They are to be found in the Bib- 
liotheca Sacra for 1843, a work of which he was 
at that time the able editor. 

THE COMING OF CHRIST. 

AS ANNOUNCED IN MATT. 24: 29-31. 

Our Lord had taken his final leave of the tem- 
ple and its courts ; and in departing had uttered 
over it the dread prediction, soon to be so fear- 
fully accomplished : " Yerily, I say unto you, 
there shall not be left here one stone upon another, 
that shall not be thrown down." Retiring with 
his disciples to the Mount of Olives, he seated him- 
self upon the heights over against the temple, 
where its courts and edifices, as well as the whole 
city, were spread out as on a map before him. 
Here, four of the disciples propose to him privately 
the following inquiry (according to Matt. 24 : 3) : 
" Tell us when shall these things be ? and what 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 S 29-31. 127 

the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the 
world ? " According to Mark 13 : 4 — " Tell us 
when shall these things be? and what the sign 
when all these things shall be fulfilled ? " Ac- 
cording to Luke 21 : 7 — " Master, but when shall 
these things be, and what the sign when these 
things shall come to pass ? " 

As the manner in which this inquiry is to be 
understood has some bearing upon the main ques- 
tion before us, a few words may here be necessary, 
in order to set the matter in a proper light. The 
point to be considered is : To what events was the 
inquiry of the disciples directed ? 

Had we only the accounts of Mark and Luke, no 
difficulty whatever could here arise. They both 
refer simply and solely to these things : that is, the 
things first spoken by our Lord in respect to the 
temple — his emphatic annunciation of its total de- 
struction. Why ask, " When shall these things be, 
and what the sign when all these things shall be 
fulfilled, or come to pass ? " This inquiry, then, 
taken by itself, cannot possibly be referred to any 
thing but the destruction of the temple : an idea 
which would naturally connect itself in the minds 
of the disciples, as it was afterwards connected in 



128 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-32. 

fact, with the siege and overthrow of the Holy 
City. 

But Matthew relates the question in a different 
form : " When shall these things be, and of the 
end of the world ? " Here these things in the first 
clause are necessarily the same things as before in 
Mark and Luke, and can refer only to the destruc- 
tion of the temple and city. But the coming of 
our Lord and " the end of the world," in the last 
clause — do these have respect to the same events ? 
or are they to be regarded as an additional inquiry, 
referring to that awful day, when the Lord will 
come to final judgment, and "the earth and the 
works that are therein shall be burned up % " In 
other words, did the " coming " of our Lord here 
have respect, in the minds of the inquiring disci- 
ples, to the destruction of the temple and Jerusa- 
lem, or to the judgment of the last great day ? 

Perhaps a correct answer to this question would 
be, that the disciples, in their own minds, referred 
distinctly to neither of these events. They obvi- 
ously had not, at the time, any definite and distinct 
notions of that terrible overthrow and subversion 
of the Jewish people which was so soon to take 
place. They were also equally ignorant in respect 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 129 

to the awful events which are to be the accom- 
paniments of the day of judgment and the end 
of the world. We cannot suppose nor admit that 
the inquiry, as Matthew puts it, suggested to their 
minds the same ideas, nor events of the same char- 
acter, as the same language, taken by itself, would 
now suggest to us under the full light of a com- 
pleted revelation. The Holy Spirit had not yet been 
given, and even our Lord's most favored disciples 
still groped in comparative darkness. A glance at 
their training and peculiar expectations may per- 
haps enable us to perceive, with some degree of 
distinctness, what they did intend to express by 
the terms of their inquiry. 

The expectation of a Messiah to come, which 
had long been cherished by the Jewish people, had 
its foundation in the prophecies of the Old Testa- 
ment ; where the coming of the Messiah, his tri- 
umphs and his reign, are foretold in the language 
of poetic fervor and sublimity ; especially in the 
writings of Isaiah and Daniel. His reign is there 
figuratively described as a golden age, when the 
true religion, and with it the Jewish throne and 
theocracy, should be re-established in more than 
their pristine splendor and purity, and universal 
8 



130 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 

peace and happiness should consequently prevail. 
All this was doubtless to be understood in a spirit- 
ual sense. It was the Redeemer's spiritual king- 
dom that was thus foreshadowed, — that " mystery " 
of God which had been kept " hid from ages," but 
was now to be revealed to the saints. And so in- 
deed the devout Jews of our Saviour's time, such 
as Zacharias, Simeon, Anna, Joseph, appear to have 
received it. But the Jewish people at large gave 
to these prophecies a temporal meaning. They ex- 
pected a Messiah who should come in the clouds of 
heaven ; and, as king of the Jewish nation, should 
restore the ancient religion and worship, reform the 
corrupt morals of the people, make expiation for 
their sins, deliver them from the yoke of foreign 
dominion, exalt them to a preeminence over all 
other nations, and at length reign over the whole 
earth in peace and glory. A main idea in this 
mode of representation, was " the restitution of all 
things" to the Hebrew nation, and their exaltation 
to privileges and a rank above the nations of the 
earth. Their then present condition of humiliation 
and sorrow was to cease, and to be succeeded by a 
state of power and glory which should never end. 
The world (so to speak) was to be turned upside 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 131 

down ; principalities and thrones were to be cast to 
the ground, and those who dwelt on dung-hills were 
to be exalted. The coming of the expected Mes- 
siah in solemn pomp and glory was to be the 
signal for these revolutions, — the downfall of the 
present order of things, and the introduction of the 
new. The world, as it then was, and now is, was 
to come to an end ; and then all things would be- 
come new. 

That even our Lord's twelve apostles were 
deeply imbued with these views and expectations 
of a temporal Prince and Saviour, as long as Jesus 
lived, and for a time even after his resurrection, — 
until, indeed, the giving of the Holy Ghost on the 
day of Pentecost, — is apparent from every part of 
the sacred narrative. They were still groping in 
ignorance and darkness ; they received Jesus with 
sincere faith as the promised Messiah ; but as to 
the true character of himself and of his kingdom 
they had but imperfect conceptions. Their Master 
often had occasion to rebuke them for their i( little 
faith ; " he unfolded to them only gradually the 
deeper mysteries pertaining to his Gospel ; and it 
was only on the very last evening of his intercourse 
with them, and after the institution of the Holy 



132 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24:1 29-31. 

Supper, that he spoke openly to them of his depart- 
ure (John, 14 : 16). Even then they were dull 
of apprehension ; so that our Lord declares them 
still incapable of receiving the instruction which he 
would gladly communicate : " I have yet many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now." No wonder, then, that they looked upon 
him as one who was about to become a glorious 
Prince, and reign over the whole earth. In the 
spirit of this temporal and national expectation, 
the two disciples, on their way to Emmaus, de- 
clared : " We trusted that it had been he which 
should have redeemed Israel ; " and in the same 
spirit, after his resurrection, the disciples, when 
they had come together, " asked of him, saying, 
Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the king- 
dom to Israel ? " 

Such then being the state of knowledge and of 
expectation in the minds of the disciples at the time 
of our Lord's passion, it is easy to see that the 
above inquiry, made by them only a few days ear- 
lier, must be judged of and interpreted in accord- 
ance with this state of mind and feeling. They 
awaited a temporal exaltation of their Lord and 
Master, and a restitution of preeminency and 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 133 

glory to the Jewish people ; the introduction of 
this new state would be his "coming," and with 
this they now connected the overthrow of the tem- 
ple and city, which he had just predicted. His 
" coming " and the " end of the world," were there- 
fore in their minds to be coeval and identical with 
"the end" of the then present state of humiliation 
and depression, and with the commencement of the 
new and glorious era of the Messiah's temporal 
reign. 

The question, therefore, as reported by Mat- 
thew, although it affords us a deeper insight into 
the views and feelings of the disciples than as 
given by Mark and Luke, yet does not differ in its 
general import from the specifications of the two 
latter Evangelists. 

Does our Lord answer the inquiry of his disci- 
ples ? Not directly. He first warns them of many 
deceivers who shall arise. He speaks of famine, 
pestilence, and earthquakes, as about to occur ; 
which seem here, as elsewhere, to be emblems of 
great civil commotions. He warns his followers 
that they will be exposed to danger, and persecu- 
tions on every side ; from which, if they endure 
them with the patience of faith and hope, they shall 



134 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 

be delivered. The particular time when these dan- 
gers shall break forth upon them will be when 
they "shall see the abomination of desolation, 
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the 
holy place." Instead of this expression, and ex- 
planatory of it, Luke points to the time when they 
" shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies." 
Then they may know " that the desolation thereof 
is nigh." Then will be the time for every one to 
save himself by flight ; — then will the eagles be 
gathered together over the carcass ; " and Jerusa- 
lem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until 
the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." 

In close and direct connection with this repre- 
sentation, follows, in Matthew, the passage now 
more immediately to be considered. Here let the 
reader turn to Matt. 24 : 29-31, and also to the par- 
allel verses of Mark and Luke (Mark 13 : 24-27, 
and Luke 21 : 24-28), in which the connection 
is equally close and direct ; and which have an 
important bearing upon the right interpretation of 
the language of Matthew. 

After these passages, our Lord goes on, as re- 
ported by all three of the Evangelists, to introduce 
the similitude of the fig-tree putting forth its buds 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 135 

and leaves as the harbinger of summer. In like 
manner the disciples, when they shall see all 
these things taking place, may "know that it 
(the coming ?) is near, even at the door ; " or, as 
Luke more definitely expresses it, they may " know 
that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." Then 
follows immediately a most important designation 
of time, in which the three Evangelists accord ver- 
batim in the original : " Verily I say unto you, 

THIS GENERATION SHALL NOT PASS AWAY, TILL ALL 
THESE THINGS BE FULFILLED." (Matt. 24 : 32-34 ; 
Mark 13 : 28-30 ; Luke 21 : 29-32.) 

The subject is now before the reader, and the 
question to be considered is — whether the language 
of Matthew in the passage above quoted is to be 
referred to the judgment of the last great day, or 
rather to the then impending destruction of Jeru- 
salem and the Jewish nation ? It is a question on 
which good men have ever differed ; and on which, 
perhaps, entire unity of opinion is not to be ex- 
pected, until the night of darkness and ignorance in 
which we are here enveloped shall be chased away 
by the morn of pure light and perfect knowledge. 

It is conceded by all, I believe, that the repre- 
sentation, as far as to the end of the 28th verse of 



136 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 

Matthew, and in the parallel verses of the other 
Evangelists, applies solely to the overthrow of Jeru- 
salem. Or, if there be still those who would refer 
any portion of these preceding verses to the judg- 
ment day, it seems to me that they must first show 
that " the abomination of desolation," spoken of by 
Matthew and Luke, has nothing to do with the 
" compassing of Jerusalem with armies, 53 mentioned 
in the same connection by Luke ; and then, further, 
that all these things could have no connection with 
the " treading down " of Jerusalem by the Gen- 
tiles, which Luke goes on to speak of as the result 
of these antecedent circumstances. This, however, 
cannot well be shown without disregarding every 
rule of interpretation, and without violating the 
very first principles of language. 

But with the 29th verse a new specification of 
time is introduced. " Immediately after the afflic- 
tion of those days " shall appear the harbingers of 
our Lord's coming ; and these are depicted in lan- 
guage which elsewhere, it is said, is employed only 
to describe his coming to the final judgment. (See 
Matt. 25 : 3-19, also Matt. 13 : 40-41). The " com- 
ing " here meant, is then to be subsequent to the 
downfall of Jerusalem, and can therefore only mean 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 137 

the coming of the Messiah in his kingdom at the 
judgment day. This opinion is, perhaps, at the 
present time the most prevalent one among com- 
mentators, and even with those whose views in 
other respects have little in common, — as in the 
cases of Olshausen and De Wette. 

But on the other hand, it is replied that the 
phrase, " immediately after" indicates a very close 
connection of this " coming "of our Lord with the 
preceding events; and the Saviour himself goes 
on to declare, that " this generation shall not pass 
away, till all these -things be fulfilled." We must 
then assume, it is said, that the prediction had its 
fulfilment within a period not long subsequent to 
our Lord's ministry ; or, if it is to be referred to 
the day of judgment, then we must admit that 
our Lord was in error, inasmuch as he here fore- 
told that it would take place " immediately after " 
— the downfall of Jerusalem. For these reasons 
many commentators have understood the language 
as applicable only to the destruction of the Holy 
City ; forgetting, apparently, that the very expres- 
sion which they urge against a remote future appli- 
cation, is equally stringent against an exclusive 
reference to the latter catastrophe. 



138 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 ! 29-31. 

It is very obvious that both of these different 
opinions cannot be true, while it is also very pos- 
sible that both of them may be more or less wrong. 
Before proceeding to develop the manner in which 
the subject has presented itself to my own mind, 
it will be necessary to examine the language of the 
prediction and the attendant circumstances, and to 
bring into view some other preliminary considera- 
tions. All this may be best done under a number 
of heads, as follows : 

I. The destruction of Jerusalem was the topic 
of our Lord's discourse with his disciples, and the 
subject of his predictions at the temple and on the 
Mount of Olives, as related by Matthew 24 : 1-28 
inclusive ; and also by Mark and Luke in the par- 
allel verses. This point has been already suffi- 
ciently considered, and requires here no further 
elucidation. 

II. The "coming" foretold in verse 29-31 of 
Matthew, was to be subsequent to the time of the 
" abomination " of desolation and the compassing of 
Jerusalem by armies, and also to the " treading 
down " of the city by the Gentiles. By this latter 
phrase is usually and rightly understood the capture 
and destruction of the city by Tiius, as related by 



EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 139 

Josephus. This same event is doubtless shadowed 
forth in the lan^uao;e of Matthew — "For whereso- 
ever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered 
together;" not indeed through any verbal allusion 
to the Roman eagles, as some assume, but in the 
general application of a proverbial expression, viz., 
that where the guilty are, there punishment shall 
find them ; or, in other words, the guilty are sure to 
be overtaken by the Divine punishment. (Com- 
pare Luke 17 : 37. Neander.) When this catastro- 
phe shall have taken place, then, immediately after 
(evdeoc fierd) this affliction, there shall be distress and 
anxiety, and the shaking of the powers of heaven, 
all which are to accompany and introduce our Lord's 
coming. The word evdiug means literally straight- 
way, and implies a succession more or less direct 
and immediate; so that there can be no doubt, 
as De Wette justly remarks, that the coming of 
the Messiah, as here described by Matthew, was 
straightway to follow the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem. Indeed no meaning can possibly be assigned 
to svdiuc which will admit of any great delay; 
much less of an interval so enormous as that be- 
tween the destruction of the Holy City and the 
end of the world, as understood by us. From 



140 exegesis of matt. 24: 29-31. 

this it is manifest that the " coming " of Christ 
here spoken of, as occurring after the downfall of 
Jerusalem, could not be meant to refer solely to 
that event. 

III. Our Lord himself limits the interval within 
which Jerusalem shall be destroyed and his " com- 
ing " take place, to that same generation : " Verily r , 
verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not 
pass, till all these things he fulfilled" The lan- 
guage is here plain, definite, and express ; it cannot 
be misunderstood, nor perverted. It follows, in all 
the Evangelists, the annunciation of our Lord's 
" coming," and applies to it in them all, just as 
much as it applies to the antecedent declarations 
respecting Jerusalem ; and more directly, indeed, 
inasmuch as it stands here in a closer connection. 

But what is the meaning of the phrase, " this 
generation " ? and what the interval of time thus 
designated ? The specification is, and must be, at 
any rate, indefinite ; for the tide of human life flows 
on in an unbroken stream, and no man can mark or 
tell the point where one generation ends and 
another begins. Yet modern chronology, with 
some degree of definiteness, reckons three genera- 
tions in a century ; and thus allows to each an in- 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24: : 29-31. 141 

terval of thirty-three and a third years ; or, more 
loosely, from thirty to forty years. The ancient 
Hebrews, on the other hand, appear to have counted 
a hundred years to each generation. God said to 
Abraham, that his seed should be afflicted in Egypt 
four hundred years ; but that in the fourth genera- 
tion they should return to the Promised Land. 
(Gen. 15 : 13-15 ; comp. Exod. 12.) 

In which of these senses is the above expression 
of our Lord to be understood ? If in the former, 
then certainly the destruction of Jerusalem, which 
is usually held to have occurred in A. D. 70, took 
place within the time thus generally specified ; that 
is, within an interval of less than forty years after 
our Lord's passion. But of the events which were 
to follow that catastrophe, we know of none that 
can be referred to the same interval. The destruc- 
tion of the city itself occurred at the very last 
point of time that can be reckoned to that genera- 
tion thus understood ; and no events of importance 
in Jewish history took place for quite a number of 
years afterwards. 

But our Lord was speaking in a popular man- 
ner, and would naturally employ expressions in 
their most popular sense. He did not mean to 



142 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 

point out definitely the exact time when this or 
that event was to take place. He says himself 
immediately afterwards : " Of that day and hour 
knoweth no one, no, not the angels of heaven, but 
iny Father only." It seems necessary, therefore, to 
understand the word "generation," as thus used 
by our Lord, in its largest sense, and in accordance 
with popular Hebrew usage, as implying a hundred 
years. But this again must not be construed too 
definitely : it is rather a general expression, desig- 
nating time by a reference to the duration of human 
life ; and is apparently neither more nor less than 
equivalent to our mode of expression, when we say : 
" There are those now born, who will live to see 
all these things fulfilled ! " Our Lord himself, in 
another passage, relating to the same subject, pre- 
sents the same idea in this very form : " Yerily I 
say unto you, there be some standing here, which 
shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of 
Man coming in his kingdom." 

IY. The question now arises whether, under 
these limitations of time, a reference of our Lord's 
language to the day of judgment and the end of the 
world, in our sense of these terms, is possible ? 
Those who maintain this view attempt to dispose 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 143 

of the difficulties arising from these limitations in 
different ways. Some assign to evdeug the mean- 
ing suddenly, as it is employed by the Seventy in 
Job 5 : 3. But even in this passage the purpose 
of the writer is simply to mark an immediate 
sequence, to intimate that another and a consequent 
event happened forthwith. Nor would any thing 
be gained, even could the word evdiug be thus dis- 
posed of, so long as the subsequent limitation to 
" this generation," remained. And in this, again, 
others have tried to refer yevea to the race of the 
Jews / or, to the disciples of Christ, not only with- 
out the slightest ground, but contrary to all usage 
and all analogy. All these attempts to apply force 
to the meaning of the language are in vain, and 
are now abandoned by most commentators of note. 
Two or three general views, however, are cur- 
rent on the subject, which demand some further 
remark. 

One is that of De Wette and others, who do 
not hesitate to regard our Lord as here announcing 
that the coming of the Messiah to the judgment 
of the last day would take place immediately after 
the fall of Jerusalem. This idea, according to De 
Wette, is clearly expressed by our Lord, both here 



144 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 

and elsewhere ; and was likewise held by Paul. 
(See Matt. 16 : 28 ; also i. Cor. 15 : 51-9 ; i. Thess. 
4 : 15-39). But as the day of judgment has not yet 
come, it follows, either that our Lord, if correctly 
reported, was himself mistaken, and spoke here of 
things which he knew not ; or else that the sacred 
writers have not truly related his discourse. The 
latter horn of this dilemma is preferred by De 
Wette. According to him the disciples entertained 
the idea of their Lord's return with such vividness 
of faith and hope, that they overlooked the rela- 
tions of time, which Jesus himself had left indefi- 
nite ; and they thus connected his final coming 
immediately with his coming to destroy Jerusalem. 
They give here, therefore, their own conception of 
our Lord's language, rather than the language itself 
as it fell from his lips. They mistook his meaning ; 
they acted upon this mistake in their own belief 
and preaching ; and in their writings have perpet- 
uated it throughout all time. 

This view is of course incompatible with any 
and every idea of inspiration on the part of the 
sacred writers ; the very essence of which is, that 
they were commissioned and aided by the Spirit 
to impart truth to the world, and not error. To a 



EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 145 

believer in this fundamental doctrine no argument 
can here be necessary, nor in place, to counteract 
the view above presented. To state it in its naked 
contrast with the divine authority of God's word, 
is enough. 

But there may well be a further inquiry here 
raised, viz., whether there was in fact, in the minds 
of Paul and other apostles and early Christians, so 
strong an expectation of the speedy coming of 
Christ to judgment as is thus assumed ? The main 
passage on which this assumption is made to rest 
is the very one now under consideration ; which in 
this way is first employed to demonstrate the exist- 
ence of such an expectation ; and then that expec- 
tation is assumed to sustain this interpretation of 
the passage. In respect to Paul, reference is made 
to his language in i. Cor. 15 : 51, et seq., and i. 
Thess. 4 : 15 ; where, in speaking of our Lord's final 
coming, he uses the first person of the plural : " we 
shall not all sleep ; " " we who are alive," etc. 
The inference drawn by some is, that Paul expected 
the coming of the judgment day in his own life- 
time, so that he himself would be one of those w T ho 
would then be alive and would be changed without 
seeing death. But nothing is more evident than 
10 



146 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 

that the language of Paul here, as often elsewhere, 
may be understood merely as including himself 
and those to whom he was writing, as a portion of 
the great body of Christians of the church univer- 
sal in all ages, the dead as well as those living at 
our Lord's coming. So Chrysostom and others, 
and even De Wette, regard it as certain that the 
phrase, "we shall all be changed," referred both to 
the dead and the living. And further, it would 
seem that Paul's language addressed to the Thessa- 
lonians had, in fact, been so understood by some as 
to imply the near approach of the judgment day ; 
and therefore the apostle, in his second Epistle, 
takes occasion expressly to warn them against any 
such misapprehension of his words: "Now we 
beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together — with 
him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be 
troubled, neither by Spirit, nor by word, nor by 
letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at 
hand." The very application of his language now 
(as then) made, the apostle here protests against. 
In the face of this protest, I do not see how we can 
well affirm that Paul regarded the final coming 
of our Lord as an event which was speedily to take 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 \ 29-31. 147 

place. That it was already so regarded by some, 
is evident from the apostle's teaching to the con- 
trary ; and that the idea continued in the Church, 
and was occasionally current in the early centur- 
ies, is matter of history. Yet for this, not the 
teachings of our Lord and his apostles, but the 
suggestions of human fancy, are responsible. 

Another form of the same general view is that 
presented by Olshausen. He too refers the verses 
of Matthew under consideration directly to the final 
coming of Christ, but seeks to avoid the difficulty 
above stated by an explanation derived from the 
alleged nature of prophecy. He adopts the theory 
broached by Hengstenberg, that inasmuch as the 
vision of future things was presented solely to the 
mental or spiritual eye of the prophet, he thus saw 
them all at one glance as present realities, with 
equal vividness and without any distinction of order 
or time, — like the figures of a great painting with- 
out perspective or other marks of distance or rela- 
tive position. "The facts and realities are dis- 
tinctly perceived ; but not their distance from the 
period, nor the intervals by which they are sepa- 
rated from each other." Hence our Lord, in sub- 
mitting himself to the laws of prophetic vision, was 



148 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 

led to speak of his last coming in immediate con- 
nection with his coming for the destruction of Jeru- 
salem ; because in vision the two were presented 
together to his spiritual eye, without note of any 
interval of time. Not to dwell here upon the fact, 
that this whole theory of prophecy is fanciful 
hypothesis, and appears to have been since aban- 
doned by its author ; it is enough to remark that 
this explanation admits, after all, the same funda- 
mental error, viz., that our Lord did mistakenly 
announce his final coming as immediately to follow 
the overthrow of the Holy City. Indeed, the dif- 
ficulty is even greater here, if possible, than before ; 
because, according to the former view, the error 
may be charged upon the report of the Evangelists, 
while here it can only be referred to our Lord him- 
self. 

It may, indeed, be further asked, whether the 
limitation to "this generation" in v. 34, may not 
be referred solely to the prediction of the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, ending with v. 28 ; and then 
verses 29-31 be understood of the general judgment 
without being affected by this limitation ? The 
reply to this question has already been 'given under 
our third head above. The limitation has a clear 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 149 

and distinct reference to all the events foretold in 
the previous discourse ; and therefore, as Lightfoot 
says, " it is hence evident enough, that the preced- 
ing verses are not to be understood of the last judg- 
ment, but of the destruction of Jerusalem." 

Y. We come now to our last preliminary in- 
quiry, viz. — Whether the language of Matthew in 
vs. 29-31 is in fact applicable to merely civil and 
political commotions and revolutions ? and whether 
the solemnity and strength of the language, and 
the grandeur and pomp of the mode of representa- 
tion, do not necessarily imply a catastrophe more 
general and more awful than the fall of a single 
city, or the subversion of a feeble people ? Can it 
be, then, that the language of these verses should 
refer merely to the destruction of Jerusalem or of 
the Jewish nation ? 

Not to dwell here upon the well-known facts, 
that the language of the Orient, and especially of 
the Hebrew prophets, is full of the boldest meta- 
phors and the sublimest imagery, applied to events 
and things which the manner of the Occident 
would describe without figure and in far simpler 
terms, it will be sufficient to show that similar lan- 
guage is employed both in the Old and New Testa- 



150 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 

ments on various occasions arising out of changes 
and revolutions in the course of human events ; and 
especially in respect to the judgments of God upon 
nations. We will take the verses in their order. 

Verse 29. Here it is said, that after the preced- 
ing tribulation, the darkness of the sun and moon, 
the falling of the stars, and the shaking of the pow- 
ers of heaven, are to be the harbingers of the Lord's 
coming. " The powers of heaven " are the sun, 
moon and stars, " the host of heaven " of the Old 
Testament. Now that the very same language, 
and the same natural phenomena are employed in 
other places to mark events in human affairs and to 
announce God's judgments, is apparent from the 
following passages. 

In Isaiah, chap. 13, woes and judgments are 
denounced against Babylon. In v. 9 it is said " the 
day of the Lord cometh to lay the land des- 
olate ; " and in v. 10 the following signs and accom- 
paniments are pointed out : " For the stars of 
heaven and the constellations thereof shall not 
give their light ; the sun shall be darkened in his 
going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light 
to shine." 

In Isaiah, chap. 34, similar woes and judg- 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 151 

ments are proclaimed against Idumea, — see vs. 
5, 6. The prophet in v. 2 describes " the indigna- 
tion of the Lord upon all nations . . . .he hath 
utterly destroyed them ; " and in v. 4 he continues : 
" And all the host of heaven ( Sept. Swdfietg rtiv 
ovpavtiv ) shall be dissolved ; and the heavens shall 
be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host 
shall fall down, as the leaf falleth oft' from the vine, 
and as the withered leaf from the fig-tree." 

In Ez. 32 the prophet takes up a lamentation 
for Pharaoh, v. 2 ; in the succeeding verses his de- 
struction is foretold ; and then the prophet proceeds 
in v. 7 as follows : " And when I shall put thee 
out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars 
thereof dark ; I will cover the sun with a cloud, 
and the moon shall not give her light. All the 
bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, 
and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord 
God." 

In Joel. 2 : 30, 31 [3, 3. 4, Heb.] the very same 
phenomena are described as appearing "before the 
great and terrible day of the Lord come." In Acts, 
2 : 19, 20, this passage is quoted by the Apostle 
Peter, and applied directly to the great events 
which were to accompany the introduction of the 



152 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 

new dispensation, — including obviously the signs 
and wonders attendant upon the death and resur- 
rection of our Lord ; the outpouring of the Spirit 
on the day of Pentecost and upon the churches af- 
terwards ; the spread and establishment of Chris- 
tianity ; and the final termination of the Mosaic 
dispensation in the subversion of the temple- 
worship, and the irretrievable ruin of the Jewish 
nation. 

These examples are enough to show that the 
language of the verse under consideration may well 
be in like manner understood as symbolic of the 
commotions and revolutions of states and kingdoms. 
In respect to the other two Evangelists, the words 
of Mark are entirely parallel to those of Matthew ; 
while Luke interweaves a further allusion to ter- 
restrial phenomena, and to the distress and faint- 
ness of heart among men " for fears and for look- 
ing after those things which are coming on the 
earth." 

Verse 30. After the phenomena described in 
the preceding verse, is to appear " the sign of the 
Son of Man in heaven." This of course is not the 
Messiah himself, as some assume ; but it would 
seem to be something immediately connected with 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 153 

his personal appearance, — perhaps the dark clouds 
and tempest, the thunders and lightnings, which 
are ascribed as the usual accompaniment of a The- 
ophania, and in which the Redeemer is at first 
shrouded— (see Ps. 18 : 11-14.) Then the Son of 
Man himself is seen " coming in the clouds of 
heaven with power and great glory." Can this 
magnificent and awful representation have refer- 
ence merely to events in the world's past history ? 

Let this question also be answered by an ap- 
peal to the Old Testament. There Jehovah is rep- 
resented as appearing in a similar manner, both 
for the judgment of the wicked and the protec- 
tion of the righteous. 

Thus in Ps. 97 : 2, seq : " Clouds and darkness 
are round about him, — a fire goeth before him, 
and burnetii up his enemies round about," etc. 

So, too, in respect to particular nations. In 
Isaiah 19 : 1, it is said : " Behold the Lord rideth 
upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt ; 
and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his pres- 
ence," etc. 

In like manner, Ps. 68 is the description of a 
continued Theophania, in behalf of the people of 
Israel : see vs. 1, 2 ; 7, 8 ; 17, 18 ; 33, 35. 



154: EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 

The same sublime imagery is likewise employed 
in Ps. 18 (see also n. Sam. chap. 22) in describing 
God's appearance for the deliverance of an individ- 
ual — his chosen servant David. A passage more 
full of poetic sublimity and overpowering grand- 
eur can hardly be found in the sacred writings 
than is contained in vs. 7-15 of that Psalm. The 
application of it to David follows immediately in 
v. 16 : " He sent from above, he took me, he drew 
me out of many waters," etc. 

If then language of this kind relating to Jeho- 
vah is employed in the Old Testament, with refer- 
ence both to nations and to individuals, we surely 
are authorized to apply the like representation of 
the New Testament to an event so important in the 
Divine economy as the overthrow of God's own pe- 
culiar people, and the chosen seat of their national 
worship. 

The source of the particular form of representa- 
tion in v. 30 is doubtless the seventh chapter of 
Daniel. There in vs. 13, 14, the prophet says : 
" I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like 
the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven. 
And there was given him dominion, and glory, 
and a kingdom, that all people, nations and Ian- 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 155 

guages should serve him ; his dominion is an ever- 
lasting dominion, which shall not pass away ; and 
his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." 
Here then is the Messiah, coming not for the day 
of judgment, but to introduce his spiritual kingdom 
upon earth. Analogically, therefore, the like lan- 
guage of our Lord in the verse before us must be 
understood in the same way, and not made to re- 
fer to the day of judgment. 

Verse 31. Hosts of angels and the sound of 
the trumpet belong to the Christophania here and 
elsewhere, as also to the Theophania. Here, too, 
it is said : " He shall send his angels (v. 31), and 
they shall gather together his elect from the four 
winds ; " the same is affirmed in the corresponding 
verse of Mark. This " gathering," it has been 
thought, can refer only to the assembling of all na- 
tions for the final judgment, as more fully depicted 
in Matt. 25 : 31, et seq., and also as implied in the 
explanation of the parable of the tares in Matt. 
13 : 40, seq. But on comparing the modes of ex- 
pression in the two cases, they do not appear to be 
parallel. Here the angels simply " gather together 
the elect ; " there (in 25 : 32) " all nations " are 
gathered before him, — elect and n<m-elect, and the 



156 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 29-31. 

wicked are then separated from the righteous (see 
also Matt. 13 : 41, 43). The idea of such a separation 
before the judgment seat is indeed essentially con- 
nected with every representation of the day of judg- 
ment, and cannot be separated from it. Why then 
are only the elect here said (in v. 31) to be gath- 
ered together ? Nothing of the kind is expressed 
or implied in the passage itself; nor is it elsewhere 
ever said of the elect, that they alone will be " gath- 
ered together," to the judgment of the great day. 
But the idea of " gathering together" those 
widely dispersed, sometimes includes also the ac- 
cessory notion of deliverance and protection, as the 
end and purpose of the act. Thus it is said of Je- 
hovah that "he gathereth together the outcasts of 
Israel" (Ps. 147: 2; Deut. 30: 3); he will gather 
them out of all lands whither they are scattered, 
will deliver them from all dangers, and secure to 
them his protection. So too our Lord, in his touch- 
ing lament over Jerusalem, exclaims ; "How often 
would I have gathered thy children together, even 
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not." Here the idea of deliverance 
and protection is strongly prominent. Now this 
idea we may apply in the verse under consideration, 



EXEGESIS OF ma/it. 24: 29-31. 157 

In the commotions and distress antecedent to our 
Lord's coming for the destruction of the Jewish 
state he will send his angels " to gather together 
his elect," so that they may be delivered and pro- 
tected from the dangers which threaten them. In- 
deed, precisely this idea is strongly expressed by 
Luke in the parallel verse: "And when these 
things begin to come to pass, then look up, and 
lift up your heads ; for your redemption draw- 
eth nigh" 

We come then to the general result, that the 
language of the three verses under consideration 
does not necessarily apply to the general judgment ; 
while the nature of the context shows that such an 
application is wholly inadmissible. On the other 
hand, there is nothing in the language itself to 
hinder our referring it to the downfall of Judaism 
and the Jewish people ; but rather both the con- 
text and the attendant circumstances require it to 
be understood of these events. 

In further illustrating the language of our 
Lord as thus applied, I would remark, that " his 
coming," as he foretold, includes as its object not 
only the overthrow of the Jewish nation, but also 
the establishment and spread of his own spiritual 



158 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 29-31. 

kingdom upon earth. This is clearly indicated in 
the words of Daniel, as above cited ; and also in 
those of Joel, as cited and applied by the apostle 
Peter (Dan. 7 : 13-4 ; Acts 2 : 16, seq). The latter 
prophecy began to have its fulfilment in the signs 
and wonders attendant upon our Lord's death and 
resurrection, and in the outpouring of the Spirit on 
the day of Pentecost ; but it was fully accomplished 
only in the later catastrophe of Jerusalem and Ju- 
daism. The tenacity with which that people clave 
to the outward rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic 
dispensation, to the worship of the temple, and to 
their hopes of restoration and exaltation under a 
temporal Messiah, as also their fierce and unre- 
lenting opposition to the claims of the lowly Jesus, 
— all this was the first great and prominent obsta- 
cle to the introduction and prevalence of his spirit- 
ual reign. This was at that moment the great ene- 
my to be vanquished ; and the downfall of this 
opposing power was to be the triumph and the 
establishment of the Messiah's kingdom. Both 
these great results, therefore, were to be accom- 
plished by this his coming (see also Matt. 16 : 27). 
The destruction of Jerusalem and of the tem- 
ple, although standing out as a prominent catastro- 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 159 

plie in this great series of events, was yet not the 
only one, and perhaps not the most important. 
Through the minute and vivid description of Jose- 
phus, who was himself an actor and an eye-witness 
in all those scenes of blood and desolation, the fall 
of the Holy City has been brought out before the 
world for all time with a distinctness and promi- 
nence, greater, perhaps, than any other like event 
of ancient history. Hence it has become the great 
central point in the later history of the Jews ; and 
thus has overshadowed and shut out from view the 
slighter notices of other events, — in themselves per- 
haps not of less moment, but which have not been 
recorded by the graphic pen of a native historian. 
In this way the overthrow of the Jewish capital 
and temple has come to be regarded as the final 
catastrophe of the nation ; after which their exist- 
ence and name, as a nation, were utterly blotted 
out. Hence the frequent application of our Lord's 
prediction to this event alone. 

But such was not, in fact, the case. The de- 
struction of Jerusalem by Titus, although terrible, 
was nevertheless not total. The city slowly revived. 
The Jews in Palestine, though reduced completely 
to the condition of a Roman province, were not 



160 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 

driven otit from their own land. The chief men, 
indeed, were allured to Rome; or they found 
employment elsewhere ; but the merchant in his 
shop, and the husbandman at his plough, were not 
interrupted in their labors. Yet we cannot sup- 
pose that the national hatred towards the Roman 
yoke was laid aside. Under the reign of Trajan, 
insurrections broke out among the Jews of Cyrena- 
ica and Egypt, which were soon quelled. Fifty 
years after the ruin of Jerusalem, Adrian began to 
rebuild the city, in order to convert it into a hea- 
then capital ; and probably also with a view to ren- 
der it a stronghold for keeping in check the national 
spirit of the Jewish people. This new attempt 
served as a spark to kindle the long smothered 
embers of hatred and discontent ; and caused them 
to burst forth into a flame, which overran and con- 
sumed both the land and the people with terrible 
desolation. The leader was the celebrated Bar- 
cochba, " Son of a Star." His success at first was 
great ; he soon obtained possession of Jerusalem, 
and of no less than fifty fortified places, and one 
hundred and eighty-five important villages. Adrian 
at length awoke from his lethargy, and troops 
poured in upon Judea from the remotest quarters 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 21 1 29-31. 161 

of the empire. The Jews were harassed and worn 
out by degrees ; and the bloody tragedy was at 
length brought to a close at the unknown city of 
Bether, in the eighteenth year of Adrian, A. D. 
135. Thousands and thousands of the captives 
were sold as slaves at the Terebinth near Hebron, 
at Gaza, and in Egypt. By a decree of Adrian the 
Jews were forbidden thenceforth even to approach 
the Holy City ; and guards were stationed to pre- 
vent them from making the attempt. This severe 
decree probably included, or at least effected, the 
removal of the Jewish inhabitants from Judea. 
Two centuries later, we find Tertullian speaking of 
them as still deprived even of a stranger's right to 
set foot upon their paternal soil. It was not until 
the days of Constantine, in the fourth century, that 
they were first allowed again to approach the Holy 
City, and at length to enter it once a year, and buy 
the privilege of wailing over the ruins of their for- 
mer sanctuary. 

Such is an outline of the great final catastrophe 
of the Jewish people, as it can be collected from the 
few scattered notices found in ancient foreign wri- 
ters. These few fragments have been collected 

and arranged by Miinter (already quoted largely in 
11 



162 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 I 29-31. 

previous pages of this volume). Had there been a 
Josephus to give us a history of this war with equal 
completeness and graphic power, — who can say that 
the catastrophe, in its magnitude and its horrors, 
would seem to us in any degree to come short of 
that of Jerusalem ? 

After these illustrations I may sum up here in 
a few words the views suggested to my own mind 
in respect to the discourse of our Lord under con- 
sideration. In reply to the question of the four 
disciples — " When shall these things be ? " Jesus 
first points out what was to happen after his 
departure, — the trials and dangers to which his 
followers would be exposed. Then comes "the 
abomination of desolation ; " Jerusalem is " com- 
passed by armies," and is " trodden down by the 
Gentiles ; " all this referring to its desolation by 
Titus in A. D. 70. Immediately afterwards the 
Lord would come and establish more fully his spir- 
itual kingdom, by crushing in terrible destruction 
the last remnants of the power and name of Ju- 
daism ; and this within the general limit of a gen- 
eration of a hundred years from the time when he 
was speaking. There might therefore, literally, 
have been some then " standing there, who did not 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. XXIV. AKD XXV. 163 

taste of death till they saw the Son of Man (thus) 
coming in his Kingdom.' 5 Then it was when this 
first great foe of the Gospel dispensation was to be 
thus trampled down, that Christians were to look 
up. " Then look up, and lift up your heads ; for 
your redemption draweth nigh." The chains of 
religious despotism, and the terrors of Jewish per- 
secution, would then be at an end for ever ; and 
the disciples of Christ, thus far disenthralled and 
triumphant, might rejoice in the prevalence of the 
Gospel of peace and love, — which was the coming 
of Christ's spiritual kingdom upon the earth. 

I will here add a few remarks upon the remain- 
ing part of our Lord's discourse in the 24th and 
25th chapters of Matthew. It is well known that 
commentators differ in respect to what portions of 
this discourse are to be referred to the destruction 
of Jerusalem, and what to the judgment-day ; and 
also as to where the one topic ends and the other 
begins. Thus Doddridge finds the transition from 
the former to the latter event in Matt. 24 : 36 ; 
Flatt and Kuinoel place it at v. 43 ; Eichhorn, 
in chap 25 : 14 ; and others, as Wetstein, not until 
chap. 25 : 31. 

All interpreters, of any name, I believe, are 






164 EXEGESIS OF MATT. 25. 

agreed that the vivid representation in Matt. 25 : 
31-46, has reference only to the day of final judg- 
ment. Perhaps an exception may be found among 
some in this country, who deny the doctrine of fu- 
ture punishment. But it cannot well be otherwise 
than evident to every candid mind that if the doc- 
trine of a future judgment day be found at all in 
the N. T. it is prominently and expressly asserted 
in this passage, — a day when all flesh shall rise 
from the dead and be gathered before the omnis- 
cient Judge ; when the righteous shall be separated 
from the wicked ; and every one be rewarded, or 
punished, according as his works shall be. The 
same general view is taught also by our Lord in 
his exposition of the parable of the tares, and in 
his teaching as recorded by John (Matt. 13 : 40- 
43 ; John 5 : 28, 29). It is found also in Daniel 
(12 : 2), and is more fully developed in the writings 
of Paul and in the Apocalypse. Paul often dwells 
upon the mighty theme : " For we must all ap- 
pear before the judgment seat of Christ," etc. 
(n. Cor. 5 : 10.) In the sublime visions of the Apoc- 
alypse, the writer " saw the dead, small and great, 

stand before God ; and the books were opened 

and the dead were judged," etc. (Rev. 20: 12 
seq., 22, 12, etc.) 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 25. 165 

"With all these representations the language be- 
fore us, in chap. 25 : 31-46, is perfectly accordant ; 
nor is there any thing either in the circumstances 
or in the context, to lead us on any philological or 
historical grounds to a different interpretation of 
the passage. The 46th verse of itself decides this 
point: "And these [the wicked] shall go away 
into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into 
life eternal." There is no possible way of evading 
the force of this antithetic declaration, which on 
the face of it relates to the eternal destiny of 
mortals as fixed by the judgment day, except by 
denying the idea of endless duration ascibed t) 
the word aluvtog; in respect both to future punish- 
ment and to future life. This is said to be done 
by some, who denying the doctrine of a state of retri- 
bution in another world, refer this whole passage to 
the destruction of Jerusalem ; and are thus ready 
to barter away the hope of a future life of glory, 
in order to get rid of the terrors of a future state 
of punishment. According to them, in this verse, 
both the condemnation and the promise h re- 
spect only to this life ; and then it follows, that the 
life of man, or threescore years and ten, is life 
eternal. I am unable to see why this is not in 



166 • EXEGESIS OF MATT. 25. 

the strictest sense of the term, both philologically 
and theologically, a reductio ad absurdum. 

This whole passage, then, I hold without doubt 
to refer to the general judgment. 

Let us now go back to the preceding parable, 
that of the talents, in Matt. 25 : 14-30. Here the 
awful scenes of the dread tribunal are not indeed 
depicted ; yet the subject is the same as before, the 
great doctrine of final retribution. Here it is the 
Master who returns after a long absence ; calls his 
servants to an account; invites those whom he 
finds worthy to the splendid banquet of rejoicing 
prepared to celebrate his return ; while he casts out 
the unfaithful servant into outer darkness and woe. 
The whole description is entirely consonant to that 
of the judgment day which follows ; and is not 
analogous to any representation of the N. T. hav- 
ing reference merely to matters of this life. 

If we go back now still further to the parable 
of the Ten Virgins (Matt. 25 : 1-13), we shall find, 
I think, that it is the great object of the parable to 
inculcate the same important truth, the acceptance 
or non-acceptance of those professing to be the fol- 
lowers of Christ, according to their several charac- 
ters and deserts, — their admission or non-admission 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 AND 25. 167 

to the state of future bliss in the kingdom of God, 
here depicted under the imagery of a marriage-fes- 
tival. The same idea of future bliss to the right- 
eous is expressed by the same imagery in the Apoc- 
alypse : " Blessed are they which are called unto 
the marriage-supper of the Lamb " (Rev. 19 : 7-9). 
Along with this great idea there is also strongly 
inculcated in this parable the necessity of a constant 
preparation, with reference to the future judgment 
and its dread account ; since no man knoweth 
when the Lord will call him to enter upon this 
state of retribution. 

Thus far, then, there seems to be no reason why 
the three different representations contained in 
chap. 25 should be separated, or not all referred 
alike to the transactions of the last great day. 

If now we look at the latter portions of the pre- 
ceding chap. 24:43-51, we find it intimately con- 
nected with the parable of the Ten Virgins ; so 
closely, indeed, that the idea of separating the two 
has apparently never occurred to any interpreter. 
We have here the same great lesson inculcated, — 
the necessity of continual watchfulness in the per- 
formance of duty, under the imagery of servants 
waiting for their master's return ; who then will 



168 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 36-42. 

reward the faithful, and punish the slothful and 
wicked. The punishment, it may here be noted, is 
expressed in terms similar to these employed in 
respect to him who hid his lord's talent, in chap. 
25 : 30. All this seems to furnish a sufficient 
ground, why we should regard this passage also as 
having been spoken with reference to the future 
judgment. 

There now remains to be considered only the 
passage in Matt. 24 : 36-42. Our Lord, after 
declaring that his coming to destroy the Jewish 
nation would take place before that generation 
should pass away, goes on here to say that " of 
that day and hour knoweth no one, no, not the 
angels of heaven, but my Father only." This he 
illustrates by the example of the deluge ; which, 
although long predicted by Noah, yet came sud- 
denly and unexpectedly upon the men of that gen- 
eration. Hence he urges upon his disciples the 
necessity of constant watchfulness, in order that, as 
Luke expresses it, "ye may be accounted worthy to 
escape all those things that shall come to pass, and 
to stand (i. e. be approved, not destroyed) before 
the Son of Man." 

On this passage two remarks present them- 



EXEGESIS OF MATT. 24 : 36-42. 169 

selves, which go to show that it is to be connected 
with what precedes, rather than with what follows ; 
and is therefore to be taken as referring to the over- 
throw of Jerusalem and the Jews. 

First, both the grammatical and logical connec- 
tion of the language itself require it to be so 
referred. The very expresssion "that (Ukv?/) day 
and hour" can mean nothing but the day and 
hour of which our Lord had been speaking, viz., 
that " coming " of his which should take place before 
that generation should pass away. It is that com- 
ing which would be so sudden; for as yet he had 
here described no other, and therefore his words 
could apply to no other. 

Secondly, it is somewhat remarkable, that 
throughout this whole discourse of our Lord thus 
far (to v. 42), from his departure out of the temple, 
and through his whole prediction relative to his 
then immediate coming, the Evangelists Mark and 
Luke both give parallel reports, serving alike to 
confirm and to illustrate the language of Matthew ; 
while at this very point (v. 42) their reports cease. 
All that follows in this and the next chapter is here 
given by Matthew alone. Mark no where has any 
thing corresponding. Luke indeed gives the sub- 



170 EXEGESIS OF matt. 24: 36-42. 

sequent charge to watch (ts. 43-51) in a different 
place and connection ; and also elsewhere the par- 
able of the talents (Luke 12 : 39, seq. The par- 
able of the talents is found in Luke 19 : 12, seq.). 
But the parable of the Ten Virgins and the descrip- 
tion of the last day, are found only in Matthew. 
All this goes to show that Mark and Luke intended 
to report the language now under consideration as 
connected with what precedes ; inasmuch as they 
give nothing further. It goes also to show that 
they regarded the discourse of our Lord, up to this 
point, as a whole, having reference to his coming 
for the overthrow of Judaism ; and also that the 
subject, which thus far was one, was here com- 
pleted. 

It follows, then, that our Lord, as further 
reported by Matthew, here takes up (with v. 43) a 
new topic ; which thus apparently begins, as it evi- 
dently ends, with the enforcement of the duty of 
watchfulness upon all, in reference to the terms of 
their acceptance with God, and of their admission 
to the Messiah's kingdom, when he shall come to 
judge the world, and reign in bliss and glory. 



BECAPITULATION OF THE AKGUMENT. 171 



PAKT IV. 



Let us sum up the considerations, then, that 
go to prove the " Second Catastrophe " in as few 
words as possible. The disappearance of the Jew- 
ish nation, at the time and in the manner already 
described, cannot be reasonably questioned. They 
were in being at the time Jerusalem was destroyed 
by Titus, in ri'umber about six millions. That 
number was not greatly diminished in that war. 
With about that number it commenced the stormy 
and disastrous period of sixty-five years which im- 
mediately followed, at the end of which not one 
million of souls can be found. This state of things 
must have been as distinctly seen, and as fully 
known by the Saviour when on the Mount of 
Olives, conversing with his disciples, as was the 
first catastrophe — the destruction of the city and 
temple by Titus. Would it not be, therefore, a 
most injurious and unjust reflection upon our Sa- 
viour's character to suppose that he would inform 



172 RECAPITULATION OF THE ARGUMENT. 

the disciples of the first series, and not of the last, 
of these calamities, especially since the last series 
was incomparably the more disastrous ? 

Again, no reasonable construction can be put 
upon Matt. 24 : 29-46, but that which involves 
just this result. The event to which we referred 
was to take place within one hundred years of the 
time when he was speaking (A. D. 33), and that 
nation fought its last battle A. D. 135. The Lord 
Jesus Christ, in adopting the imagery which we 
find him using in Matt. 24 : 29-31, evidently in- 
timates that the ancient prophets for nearly a 
thousand years pointed to this natidhal catastrophe. 
And, finally, such a catastrophe was in harmony 
with the decisions of divine wisdom and justice. 
That nation, more honored than any other, in that 
it had given birth to the Messiah, had committed 
the greatest sin that any nation could be guilty of 
in " crucifying the Lord of life and glory." The 
wisdom and the justice of God are therefore con- 
spicuous in the terrible punishments to which, as 
we have seen, that guilty nation was, as a nation, 
subjected in the first and the second century. 

Our last argument in favor of the interpretation 
we have maintained, is derived from the prophetic 



ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 173 

portions of the Book of Daniel, and from the 
Apocalypse. 

It is an important fact that no two commenta- 
tors, with whom we are acquainted, have ever 
agreed in the interpretation of the prophetic parts 
of these two Books. This want of agreement may 
be referred in the main to two causes. The first we 
believe to be a want of attention to the fact that 
the authors of those books wrote under extreme 
restraint. Both were in exile and in bondage. It 
was known to both as an absolute certainty, that 
if what they wrote were to be understood as ap- 
plicable, either directly or indirectly, to the times in 
which they lived, or to the powers which held them 
in bondage, their lives, however important to their 
country and to Christianity, would certainly be for- 
feited. Hence they adopted the method of writing 
in cipher : that is, they employed arbitrary, and in 
general unknown, terms, in the communication of 
their thoughts. What they designed to communi- 
cate to their own nation and to their own times 
would be readily understood by the people for whom 
they wrote, while to their deadly enemies, in whose 
power they were, the language would be obscure, 
if not unintelligible, though it referred most directly 



174 ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 

to themselves. In confirmation of this, the reader 
is referred to Dan. 12 : 10 — " None of the wicked 
shall understand, but the wise shall understand ; " 
the term wise being used by the prophet to desig- 
nate those who are truly the people of God (v. 3). 
Nor is there any thing wrong in this manner of 
writing, if we look at the circumstances in which 
those men were placed. They both knew with ab- 
solute certainty that if they came out and distinctly 
announced the names and characters to whom they 
referred, it would unquestionably cost them their 
lives. This is especially true of the writer of the 
Apocalypse. Daniel has expressly affirmed that 
he " heard but he understood not " (v. 8), so impor- 
tant was it that his message to the people of God 
should be faithfully delivered, yet couched in lan- 
guage which their enemies could not decipher, 
that it is delivered even to Daniel in that charac- 
ter. He could not tell what was the import of 
those singular designations of time, such as are re- 
corded in ch. 12 : 11-12 — " And from the time that 
the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the 
abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall 
be a thousand two hundred and ninety days " — 
three years and a half, or very nearly. " Blessed 



ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 175 

is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three 
hundred and five and thirty days," — three years 
and two-thirds or more. 

These designations of time are found to refer 
most accurately to that fearful war which put an 
end to the Jewish nation. "The daily sacrifice" 
would of course cease, as soon as the period had 
arrived for the nation to die ; and " the abomina- 
tion that maketh desolate " would be the divine 
announcement that that period had arrived. 

The different visions granted to this prophet, 
as any one may see, are not recorded, in the book 
before us, in the order in w T hich they obviously oc- 
curred. Those which announced the destruction 
of the Chaldean capital and the Chaldean nation 
were the first which he saw. From these the tran- 
sition to the future condition of his own nation and 
people, inasmuch as there were many points that 
were strikingly analogous, became very natural 
and easy ; so much so that Jerusalem itself came to 
be spoken of under the name of Babylon, especially 
in the Apocalypse. 

But here I must request the reader to notice 
particularly the manner in which the prophet be- 
fore us unquestionably refers to the coming of Christ, 



176 AKGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 

and to the signs and wonders which announced his 
advent (chap. 7 : 13) — " I saw in the night visions, 
and, behold, one like to the Son of Man came with 
the clouds of heaven." Then, mark the manner 
in which Christ himself refers to this declaration, 
Matt. 24 : 29, 30 — " Immediately after the tribula- 
tion of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and 
the moon shall not give her light : and they shall 
see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven 
with power and great glory." Can there be any 
doubt that both these passages refer to one and the 
same event. The Lord Jesus Christ must be re- 
garded as a correct expounder of Scripture. If so, 
the vision which Daniel had, and which is recorded 
in the 7th chap, of Daniel, most clearly referred to 
the calamities which were coming upon the nation 
of the Jews, and which Christ declares should come 
"immediately after" the first catastrophe — the 
destruction of the city and temple by Titus. I feel 
compelled to regard this entire vision as having ref- 
erence to those scenes and events which were to 
follow " immediately '' upon the occurrence of this 
first visitation of the Son of Man — events which 
we have every where regarded as forming the 
second coming of Christ. 



ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 177 

The effort of this prophet to conceal his full 
meaning from those enemies of God by which he 
was surrounded, while at the same time " the wise 
should understand," is not indeed as obvious as it 
is in the Apocalypse, where the writer regards him- 
self as living on the very eve of those calamitous 
times. His complaints, that he cannot understand 
what he is obliged to utter, are very frequent, and, 
we may add, very sore. Not so with him who is 
an exile in the isle of Patmos ; he thoroughly un- 
derstands the vision. " Behold I come quickly " 
is at once apprehended, and he exclaims with rap- 
ture, " Even so come, Lord Jesus." 

But Daniel must use the imagery which he has 
adopted throughout, in order that he may be per- 
mitted to say what he has seen in vision ; and what 
he distinctly perceives has a direct reference, pri- 
marily, to the nation to which he and many of his 
people are in bondage. There is such a marked 
resemblance between Babylon on the eve of destruc- 
tion, and Jerusalem when John wrote, that the rec- 
ords of the one may almost be taken for the other. 
But both are written under marked restraints. 
Despotism, enthroned in Chaldea, held the sword 

pointed at the heart of Daniel ; and a bloody and 
12 



178 ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 

relentless tyrant stood ready to demand the execu- 
tion of John, upon the utterance of the first sen- 
tence which could be fairly construed against the 
Roman power. 

So distinct and evident is this feature in the 
7th chapter especially, that infidelity has affirmed 
" it is in fact no prophecy, but history." Events 
that are here foretold so obviously accord with 
those which actually took place, that obstinate 
unbelief could find no other explanation than to 
say " the book is no prophecy, but a history ; a rec- 
ord of events that had already taken place." 

Let us look then a little more particularly at 
this 7th chapter of Daniel. The first six chapters 
are historical ; easily understood, of course ; while 
the other six are as evidently prophetic^ and in their 
interpretation attended with great difficulty. 

In following out the method which the prophet 
had adopted, he says, he " saw in a vision by night 
the four winds of heaven striving upon the great 
sea." The import of which seems to be that he 
saw all the then known world in strife for the mas- 
tery ; the result of which was the appearance of 
" four great beasts that came up out of the sea." 
These are afterwards explained to be " four kings 



ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 179 

which were to arise out of the earth." The first 
beast was "like a lion;" this was the Chaldean 
monarchy. The second was "like a bear;" this 
was the Persian. The third " like a leopard ; " this 
was the Grecian. The fourth beast was like none 
he had even seen or heard of; it was one "therefore 
to which he could give no name. There can be no 
doubt that here was the representation of the 
Roman empire. 

The prophet says he was employed in observing 
these beasts " till the thrones were overturned and 
the Ancient of days did sit;" i. e. he was em- 
ployed in contemplating this vision in reference to 
the beasts, till he saw " the king of kings and Lord 
of lords " ascend his throne, and proceed to gather 
around him the heavenly hosts, with a view to pun- 
ish his enemies and protect his friends. The judg- 
ment here spoken of was evidently not the general 
judgment, as it is called — that which is gathered at 
the last day, but it is the period when, as he says 
in v. 13, he " saw in the night- visions one like unto 
the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven," 
to destroy the Jewish nation. Here notice that the 
same imagery is employed as that which our Sav- 
iour used in pointing out the " end of the age," or 
the second coming of the Son of Man. 



180 ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 

When, in the explanation given by the angel 
(chap. 8 : 15-27) the " two horns upon the ram " 
are said to be " the kings of Media and Persia," we 
are to understand that these are taken as represen- 
tations of that power which was to overthrow the 
nation of the Jews. The fearful catastrophe which 
awaited that unhappy people is still kept before 
them. Not one of the prophets that follow can 
close his mission without referring to a certain 
unknown period in the dark future, sometimes 
called "the day of the Lord/' and sometimes, as in 
the passage before us, "the time of the end." 
Every one who was commissioned to "loose the 
seals of God's decrees, and gaze on things un- 
known" to common men, must speak of an 
approaching "end" as an event in which that 
nation, if not the world, was most deeply inter- 
ested. 

Nor have we a single vision in which, in some 
form or other, that power which was to overthrow 
the Jewish nation and bring them to that fearful 
end which awaited them is not mentioned. In fact 
" the burden of the word of the Lord " from this 
time forth, as it had been in the days of Isaiah, Eze- 
kiel, and Jeremiah, was the demolition of that 



ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 181 

stately structure which God had reared at such vast 
expense, and the establishment of a kingdom which 
should not be overthrown. But the chief instru- 
ment in the hands of God for the accomplishment 
of such a purpose, is every where referred to in 
terms that should have made the Jewish ear tingle. 
In the vision we have just considered (Dan. 7) this 
monster was so formidable that Inspiration itself 
durst not venture a description ; and in this which 
we are now considering he makes his appearance 
again, as one whose mission it was to " stand up " 
" when the transgressors are come to the full," i. e. 
" when the cup of their iniquity is filled," " a king 
of a fierce countenance," and one "that understood 
dark sentences;" whose mission would end in 
" destruction of the holy people." His last and 
most heinous act would be, that he would " stand 
up against the Prince of princes." 

Now it may be confidently affirmed that no 
one ignorant of the portion of Jewish history 
given in preceding pages, can decide correctly as 
to the person here referred to. He may determine 
upon Antiochus Epiphanes, or Alexander, or any 
other one, but he will find that there are statements 
made concerning him which can not be reconciled 



182 ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 

with any of these conclusions. On the contrary, 
when he opens the history we have quoted, and 
reads of Bar-cochba, "the Son of a Star," as he 
vainly called himself, he perceives at once that he 
has found the right man. The boundless wicked- 
ness of his whole life, the unutterable blasphemies 
which he sanctioned, and the gross deceptions which 
he practised upon the Jews, led them at length to 
change his name to Bar-coziba, "the Son of a Lie." 
He made his appearance among them at a time 
when they greatly needed an earthly leader, and 
he gained their confidence to an unlimited extent. 
But he betrayed that confidence. He led them 
into inextricable difficulties, and to the very verge 
of extermination. 

Through all the visions that follow, even to 
the end of the prophecy, you may trace the history 
of that awful period which to the Jews was now 
approaching; a day drawing nigh, when, in the 
language of Christ, those were to be regarded as 
peculiarly blessed who should leave behind them 
no posterity. Select any one of these visions, and 
observe the imagery employed by the sacred writer 
— his metaphors, similes or illustrations, and you 
will find in the history we have given the per- 



ARGUMENT FEOM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 183 

sonage or the event brought before you in the 
prophecy. The four beasts that emerged from the 
great sea, brought into confusion and st>rife, are at 
first said to be kings ; but they represent four ot 
the chief persecutors or oppressors of the people 
of God which were to arise from that " great sea " 
of strife. 

So strong is the current of divine influence 
which pressed upon the mind of Daniel, that, as he 
assures us, he sinks fainting and sick, and is unable 
to pursue his business for many days ; for he was 
astonished at the vision, " but none understood it." 
Beginning with the prophet Isaiah, God had sought 
by every practicable method to turn the eye of his 
people to their approaching end; and, not until 
He had made his appearance for whom all things 
were created, did the Jews seem capable of un- 
derstanding those events which plainly heralded 
their doom. 

As we read the N. T. we are often astonished 
at the sluggishness of intellect or of heart which 
characterized the disciples, when listening to the 
instructions of the Saviour, concerning either his 
death, or the end of the age. But after his resur- 
rection their faith and intelligence improved. 



184 ARGUMENT FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 

Then we find them believing that " the day of the 
Lord is at hand." Throughout the Epistles and 
;he Apocalypse there is increasing evidence that 
they regard " the coming of the Lord Jesus " as at 
the door. And they seem as anxious to persuade 
the world that the day of the Lord draweth nigh ? 
as the Saviour himself was to convince them of 
this truth they had been ready to believe him, if 
he would permit them to understand by the " day 
of the Lord," a day when " he would restore the 
kingdom to Israel ; " but when he meant by his 
" coming " a day of judicial visitation — a day in 
which he should crush his enemies, whether Jew 
or Gentile, they could not understand him. 

That sluggishness of heart which we complain 
of in the original disciples, has travelled down from 
that period to our own of the present day. Men 
seem as unwilling now to understand by his " com- 
ing" a visitation of wrath, as then. They have 
forgotten that " the day of the Lord " may not be 
desirable, especially to his enemies. While all the 
prophets adopt substantially similar imagery when 
speaking of the coming of Christ — imagery that 
implies a fearful catastrophe — the disciples of " Sec- 
ond Adventism " understand him as engaging to 



ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 185 

spend a literal thousand years on the earth, per- 
sonally going about and instructing his people, 
healing all diseases, removing all maladies, and thus 
preparing the way for the days of millennial glory. 

The writer of the Apocalypse, when he ven- 
tures to name or designate the monster of whom 
he had been speaking, and on whom he had be- 
stowed the title of "beast," he gives us the arith- 
metical number to which the letters composing 
his name will amount (666), and bids the reader 
find oat by his learning who is meant. Had he 
affirmed in so many words that he meant Nero, or 
had he spoken of him in a way which could have 
been easily seen and understood as applicable to 
that monster, he would have written little after- 
wards. His life, so important to the people of 
God and to the age in w r hich he lived, would not 
have been safe. He must w r rite, therefore, as 
Daniel did, so that " the wise " alone (meaning 
his own people) can understand. 

Another consideration, setting forth the diffi- 
culty attending a literal understanding of the word, 
is seen in what the author of the Apocalypse has 
left on record in respect to the New Jerusalem. 
The ancient city of that honorable name was fast 



186 ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 

passing away, and he is permitted to see the New 
Jerusalem " coming down from God, adorned as a 
bride for her husband." He describes this city — 
its foundations, its gates, each a separate part ; its 
streets, pure gold, transparent as glass ; its length, 
12,000 furlongs (1,500 miles); its breadth, the 
same ; and its height, the same. It is, therefore, 
a perfect cube, 1,500 miles on every side ! This 
city is seen descending out of heaven, settling down 
upon the land of Palestine — a land, w^hich in its 
greatest breadth measures but little over one hun- 
dred miles ; yet this great city, understood liter- 
ally, 1,500 miles on every side, in length, breadth 
and height, is seen coming down upon the land of 
Palestine. 

We waste our time, however, in any attempt to 
refute a literal interpretation. The fact is plainly 
this : the advocates of this theory invariably adopt 
that principle only so far as it seems to suit their 
case, but when it begins to bear upon them unfavor- 
ably they are quite ready to abandon it and to 
adopt some other. 

In the further discussion of this subject, we 
notice one feature, which, as it pervades the whole 
book, must be regarded as a very important one, 



ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 187 

especially since Christ dwelt so much upon it. I 
refer to the declaration that the time for thefulfiU 
merit of the prediction was near at hand. In vari- 
ous forms the announcement is made that the evils 
predicted would soon be experienced. Even our 
Lord brings forward this assurance so frequently 
that we come to regard him as speaking of the 
brevity of human life, when he is obviously refer- 
ring to a very different subject. The " coming of 
the Son of Man," how often does Christ compare it 
to the coming of a thief, i. e., unexpectedly, 
unlooked for, at a time of supposed security ? 

The appeal is now made to the reader to decide 
whether it is consistent with facts to admit that the 
events for which Christ and his apostles exhorted 
the men of their generation to look, and watch, and 
wait, as being near at hand, have not yet taken 
place. If the Second Adventist — the believer in a 
personal, actual coming of Christ, to reign with his 
people a thousand years before the Millennium — will 
here inform us of the view which he takes of this 
subject, we may be relieved. If he shall say that 
the prediction relates to the day of judgment — that 
day for which all days were made — we have a right 
to ask him to account for the declarations of Christ 



188 ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 

that the generation then on earth should not pass 
away till all he had predicted should be fulfilled. 
Eighteen centuries have passed since those fearful 
words were uttered, and the judgment " is not yet." 
More than fifty generations — understood as we now 
use that term — have passed away, and the event 
which he assured us was at the door, has not yet 
made its appearance. Evidently he did not refer 
to the judgment. 

On the other hand, the Second Adventist will 
not say that Christ has actually come, and person- 
ally been on the earth a thousand years, reigning 
with the saints. That catastrophe which was to be 
heralded by the " coming of the Son of Man in the 
clouds of heaven," has certainly not taken place, 
unless it occurred before the generation then on 
earth (calling a generation a hundred years) had 
passed away. 

In perfect harmony with this is every allusion 
to that event, whatever it may be, both in the 
instructions of Christ arud in the various Epis- 
tles. Not once do they refer to it without employ- 
ing expressive terms to signify its near approach, 
and the importance of being prepared for it. The 
same course is pursued by the author of the Apoc- 



ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 189 

alypse. If possible he is more explicit. His eye 
is ever turned on the future, as if he saw at no great 
distance an event which, in importance, should 
never be surpassed in the history of that nation 
and of the world. His last words are expressive of 
what he had sought to impress on the mind of the 
reader from the first ; and these are spoken as com- 
ing from the Lord Jesus himself : " Behold I come 
quickly ; blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of 
the prophecy ot this book. And he saith unto me, 
Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, 
for the time is at hand. And behold I come 
quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every 
man according as his work shall be. He who tes- 
tifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly : 
amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." 

Now is it credible that such language as this 
should be employed in reference to an event which, 
for a certainty, we know must have been at least 
1,800 years distant, if that event was what the Sec- 
ond Adventist makes it — a personal coming of 
Christ ? And, besides, what is the fitness of such 
solemn warnings to be ready for the coming of the 
Son of Man, if that is to be a most merciful visita- 
tion, viz., to dwell with his people here on earth a 



190 ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 

thousand years, thus personally introducing the 
Millennium — an event greatly to be desired — not 
dreaded ? The inference is unavoidable. Our Sav- 
iour referred to a very different event — one of 
frightful import to the Jewish nation and to the 
world, and which has been brought to view in the 
history already quoted. The demise of the Jewish 
nation, the coming of Christ to punish that nation 
capitally^ is beyond all question the theme which 
is begun and pursued throughout the Apocalypse. 
The Jewish nation, in rejecting Christ, had filled 
up the measure of its iniquity. There was nothing 
wanting to complete its ruin when it cast its vote 
for Barabbas instead of Christ. The only service it 
could subsequently yield to the world, must be fur- 
nished in the death-throes of its approaching end. 
Hence the labors of the prophets, from Isaiah down, 
to prepare them for the day of the Lord ; hence the 
repeated and solemn warnings of Christ to watch, 
and pray, and wait, with loins girt, and lamps 
trimmed, in hourly expectation of his speedy com- 
ing. Hence the labors of the writer of the Apoca- 
lypse, almost the first sentence of which is an assur- 
ance that the things which had been given to Jesus 
Christ to show unto his servants "must shortly 



AKGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 191 

come to pass." And hence, we may add, whatever 
his theme in any part of his testimony, he fails not 
to warn that nation that the end draweth nigh. 

What was that end ? Was it the triumph of 
Christianity — the full and complete emancipation 
of the servants of God from the bondage of sin 
and from the oppressions of their bitter enemies ? 
These events were indeed to take place, but they 
were not the main things in view. The advent of 
Him who is again announced as He " that cometh 
with clouds" was for a more terrible purpose than 
to remove from the power of the unbelieving Jew 
the victims of his relentless persecution. Hence 
he is summoned to anticipate such an event : "and 
every eye shall see Him, and they who pierced 
Him," and " all kindreds of the earth (tt?s y^, the 
land) shall wail because of Him " — all the inhabi- 
tants of the land of Palestine. The whole book is 
to be regarded as a prophetic announcement of the 
end of the Jewish nation and polity — an end which 
was reached in the slaughter of five or six millions 
of that unhappy people in the course of a single 
century, and was indicated in the prophetic warn- 
ings of our Saviour which are recorded in the twen- 
ty-fourth chapter of Matthew, already considered. 



192 ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 

" The loosing of Satan for a little season " refers to 
the last and most fearful rebellion of the Jews; 
and his going out to deceive the nations in the four 
quarters of the earth, to gather them together for 
battle, has been illustrated in the foregoing history 
of the Jews in the second century, as that bloody 
struggle which lasted three years and a half. 

The nationality of the Jews being then com- 
pletely destroyed, John next beholds the dead, 
small and great, before God ; the books are opened ; 
and all are judged ; the sea gives up the dead which 
were in it ; death and hell, the same ; and every 
man is judged according to his works. All that 
were held in bondage of death and hell were cast 
into the lake of fire, and whosoever was not found 
written in the book of life. 

Thus a vision which embraced the Jews and 
their enemies for a little season, ends with the de- 
struction of all who are the enemies of God, the 
rescue and safety of his people (the followers of 
Christ), and the end of all things here below. Like 
many a vision which was imparted to the prophets 
of the Old Testament, it begins with scenes which 
are intended to represent (or symbolize) those 
of the general judgment, ending with that fearful 



ARGUMENT FROM THE APOCALYPSE. 193 

day itself, in all its solemn and momentous conse- 
quences. 

~No subject was ever more mysterious than 
that which was presented to the mind of John. 
The nation which God had selected from the na- 
tions of the earth as the recipients of most distin- 
guished favors, — from whence sprang the prophets 
and the Messiah himself, — that this nation should be 
subjugated by Pagans, be made " hewers of wood 
and drawers of water " to a nation of God's ene- 
mies ; that their city should be demolished, their 
temple desecrated and destroyed, and finally the 
nation itself blotted out of existence, was so con- 
trary to the expectations of the Jews, — so wide 
from the career which the descendant of Abraham 
had marked out for himself and his people, — that 
he could not believe it. Other nations might be 
trodden down and destroyed, but surely God would 
not suffer His elect to be thus treated. 

Nothing could be more probable therefore than 
a revelation, on the part of Heaven, of this great 
mystery. Hence the whole plan and development 
of the Apocalypse. John must write, as we have 
said, "in cipher." The persecuting, relentless 
power, then grinding the nation to dust, must not 
13 



194 CONCLUSION. 

be named Roman, but under the figure of "the 
beast/' The reckless impostor who was to lead 
the Jews in their last rebellion, and to their final 
ruin, must not be known in the record by his 
proper name, " Bar-cochba," as it was, but by that 
of " the false prophet." " The lake that burned 
with fire and brimstone " was simply the unutter- 
able destruction into which the enemies of God 
and the persecutors of Christians were soon to be 
hurled, and was only emblematic of that future and 
eternal destruction that awaited the enemies of 
Christ. 

The Second Adventist, therefore, who is look- 
ing for the literal and personal appearing of the 
Lord from heaven, is very much like the Jew wait- 
ing for the promised Messiah. He should be look- 
ing backwards, not forwards. Things that are 
past can be seen only by looking in that direction. 
The future promises the universal triumph of the 
Gospel — the spiritual reign of Christ, when " the 
knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the 
waters do the seas." The Gospel has not yet 
proved a failure. The world is much better and 
much wiser than it was a century ago. All the 
great changes that have taken place in science, 



CONCLUSION. 195 

literature, and art, are favorable to the progress of 
Christianity. We have shown that Christ, by his 
" coming," meant, in the first instance, his visita- 
tion for the destruction of Jerusalem and its tem- 
ple; that in the second instance, "immediately 
after the tribulations" occasioned by this event, 
he designated the destruction of the Jewish na- 
tion ; and in the third instance, " when he should 
come in the glory of the Father, with all the holy 
angels," it should be to judge the world. These 
are the three catastrophes to which he directed the 
attention of his disciples on the Mount of Olives. 
As two are past, one only remains — that of the 
Final Judgment. The writer and the reader will 
be there. Both shall then know that in respect 
to "the times and seasons" of which we have 
written, two of them have long since passed ; while 
as to the third, or last, " the end is not yet." 



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